The sun doesn’t always shine in West Virginia, but the people do.

I’ve had a lot of success; I’ve had failures, so I learn from the failure.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

I grew up in the east side of Detroit in an area where there was very little, except for a lot of scarcity, poverty and hunger. I never woke up saying, ‚I’m an orphan again today, isn’t this terrible? Poor me.‘

I’m not looking for sympathy at all.

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don’t care who people are as long as they’re themselves, whatever that is.

I think sometimes the critics want me to beat people down, and that’s not in me. I want to lift people up.

There are people in the world who aren’t necessarily Christians, but they’re just naturally nice people who do a lot for other people. Those people will almost always be prosperous people.

What I love best in life is new starts.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

I think whether you’re having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.

I like learning more about people; I like to talk to people.

We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.

Relish everything that’s inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you’d experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.

We were poor, but we smiled.

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

We will invest in our people, quality education, job opportunity, family, neighborhood, and yes, a thing we call America.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘

In college, a loss is pretty devastating. That feeling kind of goes away in an 82-game season. You hate to lose, but you also have a lot more games to make up for it.

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens.

The secret is not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‚Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.‘

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilization.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

‚Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

Be a force of love as often as you can and turn away negative thoughts whenever you feel them surface.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

My mother raised me with God. We were poor financially, but we were rich spiritually.

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

I don’t have many sad days.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

If you have the ability to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over, you come out stronger because you learn from whatever mistakes you made.

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.