There’s people that tried to celebrate when I lost that got nothing to do with it. That’s not the sign of a champion.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

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

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Dave Mackay is my definition of a superstar. The man broke his leg three times, but wouldn’t be carried off. He walked off.

I am sometimes sad when I hear the personal stories of Tibetan refugees who have been tortured or beaten. Some irritation, some anger comes. But it never lasts long. I always try to think at a deeper level, to find ways to console.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

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

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

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

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

That’s when you know you’re the greatest: when you’re the greatest, and people still put odds against you.

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

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

I don’t like looking back. I’m always constantly looking forward. I’m not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I’m too busy looking for the next cow.

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.

I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. No matter what the injury – unless it’s completely debilitating – I’m going to be the same player I’ve always been. I’ll figure it out. I’ll make some tweaks, some changes, but I’m still coming.

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

There are going to be good days and bad days. Bottom line.

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

People in tough times – it doesn’t mean they don’t have a great attitude.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

There are times when you throw an interception and you’re beating yourself up.

One mustn’t close one’s eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one.

You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty.

Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

Now, you lose something in your life, or you come into a conflict, and there’s gonna come a time that you’re gonna know: There was a reason for that. And at the end of your life, all the things you thought were periods, they turn out to be commas. There was never a full stop in any of it.

My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right.

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.