There are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams.

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

There is no victory at bargain basement prices.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

Success in training the boy depends largely on the Scoutmaster’s own personal example.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Whatever you do, do with all your might.

Well, I’m working all the time to stay out of trouble!

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

I think Americans generally are not used to working very hard, in terms of working for the collective. I think in our country we have taken individualism to its farthest reaches, possibly.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that’s something that we should think about.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

You gotta understand: I believe a woman should praise the man, the king. If you holding it down for your woman, I feel like the woman should praise. And the man should praise the queen.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

‚Whole Women’s Health‘ made it very clear that poor women were no longer going to be left out.

I don’t think you get successful to brag and throw what you have in the world’s face. That’s all private.

Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

To have a comeback, you have to have a setback.

Think and grow rich.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

When you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed; you see something that you can’t un-see.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

There’s something which impels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance under the same proud flag to this big, bold country that we love. That’s what I see. That’s the America I know!

To not follow your passion in life is a recipe for failure and unhappiness.

When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I’m sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.

To be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

It is no use saying, ‚We are doing our best.‘ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.

I have spent my life going from mania to mania. Somehow it has all paid off.

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.

I was raised on, ‚You go get a nine-to-five job, earn your pay and work your way up.‘

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

I was approached about having my own network many, many years ago. There were some people who wanted to start up a network, and I didn’t want to get that involved in the business aspect of it.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

Prospering just doesn’t have to do with money.

The richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

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

Every man who has at last succeeded, after long effort, in calling up the divinity which lies hidden in a woman’s heart, is startled to find that he must obey the God he summoned.

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn’t give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.

I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.