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.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Every collaboration helps you grow. With Bowie, it’s different every time. I know how to create settings, unusual aural environments. That inspires him. He’s very quick.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

One man cannot practice many arts with success.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‚I’m possible‘!

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.

In pop music, the public usually see the results – the hit records, the Grammy Awards performances, the concert tours – but not all the work that goes into getting into the spotlight. And not everyone realizes that, even if you have a lot of talent, chances are you won’t make it.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

It’s been my experience in politics that you can try and plan it out: ‚I’m going to hit the three ball which will hit the eight ball.‘ You’ve just got to go run and try to do everything right. And then have a little luck.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results.

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Begin noticing and being careful about keeping your imagination free of thoughts that you do not wish to materialize. Instead, initiate a practice of filling your creative thoughts to overflow with ideas and wishes that you fully intend to manifest. Honor your imaginings regardless of others seeing them as crazy or impossible.

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

I don’t write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

I don’t know how many good books I still have in me; I hope there are another four or five.

Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

At first, I was called a quack, a charlatan, and worse, year after year, in Australia, England and the United States, by men who simply refused to believe that a nurse from ‚the bush‘ could devise a treatment which succeeded where they had failed.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them. One day I put a post on Facebook that said, ‚God is not mad at you.‘ Within a few hours, we literally had thousands of positive responses from people saying things like, ‚That is exactly what I needed to hear today.‘ Obviously, this is a message we need to hear.

Every man who has at last succeeded, after long effort, in calling up the divinity which lies hidden in a woman’s heart, is startled to find that he must obey the God he summoned.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

There is no harm in repeating a good thing.

I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

In my opinion, rankings are a very fickle measurement of one’s success and it is best to not get carried away by it.

Of course it would be nice for everybody and myself if we could win but we can still have a personal or a team win if we achieve a target that is effectively a win for us.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

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

I can tell you from experience that God’s help and presence in our lives is vital. He is the Author of all true success and everything that is good-without Him, we can do nothing of true value.

I am proud of having done what I’ve done. Very proud.

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

I don’t think about that. I wasn’t a kid growing up saying one day I’ll get an Oscar and make a speech. That wasn’t on my mind. So what I do is the best work I can do.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

It is always your next move.

When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can ‚cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.

The successful men I admired all built their bodies.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.