To excel at the highest level – or any level, really – you need to believe in yourself, and hands down, one of the biggest contributors to my self-confidence has been private coaching.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

I was always told as a child by my mother that you always have to be impeccable, even when you go to bed.

Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I’m always going to feel everything. It’s my nature.

But ever since I was a kid, I was always the winner.

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.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‚The Big Trail‘ had been a success and launched me as a star.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Without football, my life is worth nothing.

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

In the Raphael Room, the secret turned out to be that only some of the paintings were made by the great master; the rest were made by students. I had liked the ones by Raphael. This was a big jab for my self-confidence in my ability to appreciate art.

We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

We was able to become real successful in the mixtape space.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

There is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‚Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?‘ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.

I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.

The best is the enemy of the good.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.

Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

‚Soul Plane‘ put me in a position to succeed. I’m glad I had the opportunity to be the lead man.

Someone said to me, ‚If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?‘ My answer was then and still is, ‚If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.‘

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.

People’s blessings give you the power to work tirelessly. The only thing required is commitment.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

People always tell you, ‚Be humble. Be humble.‘ When was the last time someone told you to be amazing? Be great! Be great! Be awesome! Be awesome!

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip hop.

And winning is a huge thing for me.

The man who has no problems is out of the game.

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

When schools flourish, all flourishes.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.

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