We don’t want to wait on someone to hire us and give us a check. We want to create our own opportunities.

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

You fail only if you stop writing.

There wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.

Without failure there is no achievement.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

What’s amazing is, if young people understood how doing well in school makes the rest of their life so much interesting, they would be more motivated. It’s so far away in time that they can’t appreciate what it means for their whole life.

Be willing to use yourself to get out there and put the company on the market. If you have to make a fool of yourself, make a fool of yourself, but make sure that you end up on the front pages, not the back pages. In time, it’s possible that your company will stand out from the crowd, and you’ll be successful.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

Starting a business is not for everyone. Starting a business – I’d say, number one is have a high pain threshold.

Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Do your job. Do it the best you can. Do it right, because somebody, sometimes your best friend, is waiting for you to screw up so she can take your place.

I’m definitely gaining new fans, and that’s the key of any success… gain more love.

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

Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It’s the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.

You can’t hire someone to practice for you.

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems… It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

Most employees only want to know how much they get paid and how much time off they get – they probably don’t have the mission in their souls.

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

Once I’ve decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.

You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on.

If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.

You always want your people to be proud of what you have accomplished.

There’s no point in starting a business unless you’re going to make a dramatic difference to other people’s lives. So if you’ve got an idea that’s gonna make a big difference to other people’s lives, then just get on and do it.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

I believe that we should own the fruits of our labor and the assets of our creations.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

What changed our lives forever was when Malcolm had the idea to sell rock ‚n roll records to trendy customers.

Success is the child of audacity.

In ‚Unfair Advantage: The Power of Financial Education‘ and ‚Why A Students Work for C Students,‘ I reveal the secrets of the wealthy and what schools will never teach you about money.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

You can do without a woman but not a typewriter.

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

At Virgin, we have always backed the power of the entrepreneur and inventor to find solutions to tricky problems. Why should climate change and the battle against carbon be any different?

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.