There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

How wonderful it is to be an American. We have known the best of times and the worst of times.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

The greatest difficulty always comes right before the birth of a dream.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

You’ve really got to start hitting the books because it’s no joke out here.

You have to motivate yourself with challenges. That’s how you know you’re still alive.

Over the course of my career in law enforcement, I have witnessed over and over again the selflessness and sacrifice of law enforcement who lay their lives on the line every day to protect people who they will never meet and people who will never know their names.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

Power means happiness; power means hard work and sacrifice.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

I can’t ever remember sitting around and saying, ‚gosh let’s hurry up and get these debates going, that’ll win it for me.‘ Nope.

Up until the 1920s, everyone thought the universe was essentially static and unchanging in time.

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

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

I think if I keep working in the way that I am, from the heart and from passion and with love, well, the fruits of that will keep coming.

By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.

Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.

I always have to be writing.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

For my name and memory I leave to men’s charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.

Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

I got no quarrel with them Vietcong.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

By curious accident of history and geography, the world’s major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They’re a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf.

You don’t have the same mentality as you did five years ago – even one year. People are always changing, and I believe that everyone deserves the space to change and for people to recognize their change.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

Whether for life or death, do your own work well.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready.

I’d rather be a victor than a victim.