There are many victories worse than a defeat.

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I’m still quite robust.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us – dreamers and indolent… It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich – these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing.

God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner.

The things I talk about and explain couldn’t happen – yet, they don’t seem impossible – you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane – and it’s trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can’t make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands.

We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.

Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.

I have often been downcast but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary, I treat all the privations as amusing.

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.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

One thing I’ve tried to never do is make wish lists. I try to have a very steppingstone mentality about this whole thing, where as soon as you make one step you visualize the next step, not five steps ahead.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.

You can’t stop everything from happening. But we’ve gotten to a point where we’re certainly trying. If a car doesn’t have four hundred air bags in it, then it’s no good.

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

Everybody is idealistic when you’re a kid.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

My dad has kind of been the standard for me, he played 16 years in the league, and since I’ve been in the league, every year that I go through and deal with the scratches, the bumps and bruises, just the grind that it is to go through one NBA season.

You’ll see it when you believe it.

I’ve got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.

The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.

Everything isn’t political.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.

Sin is geographical.

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

When one door is closed, don’t you know, another is open.