These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

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.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

Even the best teams can fail. Celebrities can fade. There is only One in whom your faith is always safe, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you need to let your faith show!

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success only comes later.

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

Serious illness doesn’t bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.

There’s many ups and downs in the fight game.

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

It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I’m still quite robust.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

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

I’ve been blessed to be somebody that’s been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it’s all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I’m saying, and it feels good ‚cause it’s good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.

I like criticism. It makes you strong.

Never leave a rhinestone unturned.

Life is a matter of really tough choices.

I have a message to give to the world, and I shall not be thwarted.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

Many times, we miss out on God’s best because we give up too soon. We don’t realize how close we are to victory.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

If it doesn’t work out there will never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain.

A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

When I was 5, some financial things happened, and I moved seven times in a year. We moved from apartment to apartment, sometimes living with friends. My mom would always say, ‚Don’t get comfortable, because we may not be here long.‘

A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

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

I’ve made money, and I’ve been ripped off. I’ve had creative freedom, and I’ve been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will.

I am a grafter.

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

As a professional athlete a lot is going to be said about you – but I just try to move forward and try to achieve my goals.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you – gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

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.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I’ve kept that mentality. Just because there’s a hurricane going on around you doesn’t mean you have to open the window and look at it.

A revolution is not a bed of roses.