To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal.

If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.

I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.

I don’t expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

The thing I really care about is the mission, making the world open.

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

Nothing will work unless you do.

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

Endurance is patience concentrated.

Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.

I have only one understanding of development and of making success, and that’s by going step by step.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.

Everybody that’s successful lays a blueprint out.

If we don’t succeed we run the risk of failure.

Defeat doesn’t finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

All very successful commanders are prima donnas and must be so treated.

Cardi B put a lot of work in.

See, ‚A Time to Kill‘ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.

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

If you are surrounded by your competition and you are outworking these people, outmaneuvering these people, it’s hard not to let your confidence take over. It just builds and builds and builds.

See, winners embrace hard work.

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.

I love the name of honor, more than I fear death.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.

We should no longer measure our wealth and success in the graph that shows economic growth, but in the curve that shows the emissions of greenhouse gases.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.

As far as a glass ceiling, I feel that all you can do is give it your absolute best with whatever gifts the universe has given you. And if you make it in some way that other people can recognize, that’s fine. But even if you don’t quote-unquote make it, you’re fine if you’ve given it your whole heart and soul.

I still have my first paycheck. It was just, I think, a dollar or two that I got when I started as a songwriter with BMI, and I had some songs there that I had through the company, and in the mail I got this big old check for, like, a dollar and a half or something. Somebody had recorded one of my songs.

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music ‚made it‘ the same way. It’s all different. There’s no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.

I don’t believe I’ll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn’t go to Harvard.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

People in their handlings of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure.

Getting rich is about fun. It’s a game, and you have to treat it that way.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

I want to go down in the history books with what I’ve achieved.

Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No almosts.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.

To those of you who received honours, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.

Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.

I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy, I guess.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you are going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce.

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.