We work to become, not to acquire.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family – not even my mother – who I could look to and be like, ‚I know you’ve never said anything homophobic.‘ So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you’ve heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.

If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

In England, when an athlete gets to the top, we do our best to destroy him.

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

No driver is perfect.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

I want to believe that I am improving. This is something that I take really seriously.

I’m not afraid to make mistakes.

These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.

Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don’t complain.

Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.

No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

To win a national championship, you’ve got to be a little lucky.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.

If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

There’s a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.

It was my delusion and naivety that brought me here.

I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

As an athlete, you’d better laugh at yourself when you slip in the mud.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst more and you will get a higher kind of proof.

I don’t know that you can put a label on growth. I’m just me.

Life is a matter of really tough choices.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

Richard Burton came from the same town as me, so I thought I’d follow my nose, and follow my luck. I think I’ve been very lucky.

Like so many American families, our families weren’t asking for much. They didn’t begrudge anyone else’s success or care that others had much more than they did… in fact, they admired it.

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

If you’re not very clever you should be conciliatory.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

The key to winning is choosing to do God’s will and loving others with all you’ve got.