There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

I wasn’t born a natural entrepreneur. I had to be trained.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

When I was seven or eight years old, I began to read the science-fiction magazines that were brought by guests into my grandparents‘ boarding house in Waukegan, Illinois. Those were the years when Hugo Gernsback was publishing ‚Amazing Stories,‘ with vivid, appallingly imaginative cover paintings that fed my hungry imagination.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

In the world today many people rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in life, but they usually understand it will require sacrifice and hard work.

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

Freedom is what everyone wants – to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

In soloing – as in other activities – it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.

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.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

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

Let us read and let us dance – two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

It doesn’t matter who you are – if you dream big and if you work really hard, you can achieve unimaginable results, and that’s really good for the nation.

The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life. It should be something useful, something good.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.

If I inspire you, pay for it, period.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ and I don’t know if you remember ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ but it’s dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

To describe my scarce leisure time in today’s terms, I always default to reading.

Success isn’t supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. There’s nothing set in stone.

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.

God wants to use you to make other people happy! And the happier you make others, the happier you will be because you reap what you sow.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

No man is ever whipped until he quits in his own mind.

If you look at anyone who has achieved great success and wealth, people like Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, or Lance Armstrong, they have all focused intensely in order to win.

I like money, but it’s never been about the money.

There’s nothing – I’ve bought everything I want. I don’t like yachts or anything; you know, I’m not a yacht person, and I’ve got pretty much the nicest plane I’d want to have.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.