There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

Didn’t get promoted? Good. More time to get better.

This is Sunday, and the question arises, what’ll I start tomorrow?

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Energy begets energy.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

Imagination decides everything.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

Success has always been a great liar.

What really motivates people at Facebook is building stuff that they’re proud of.

We give speeches and pin ribbons onto uniforms, etch names into walls. And all that is fine, but too often, all those tributes, all those words aren’t always backed up by action. And that felt like such a stark contrast to me, because, as we all know, our military is all about action.

Great acts are made up of small deeds.

My old drama coach used to say, ‚Don’t just do something, stand there.‘ Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.

Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.

Human development thus far has been fueled and guided by the feeling that things could be, and are probably going to be, better.

I have goals.

For my career, I wouldn’t go racing if I didn’t enjoy it. I still need to have my say, and not just get put with a team and get told to deal with it.

It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

I have to keep improving myself and challenging myself.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

A word after a word after a word is power.

My dad was like a stage mother he always pushed me to do what I wanted.

Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

We need an adult in the White House. When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off or lash out irrationally.

Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.

When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!