What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

Lots of young players have triumphed at United, so why can’t it happen to me? I’m not worried I’m young – it’s an incentive to do the best I can.

Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

Little things affect little minds.

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

I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough – when they are on the very brink of success.

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.

Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

I like money, but it’s never been about the money.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

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

There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.

We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that’s going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.

Opportunity makes a thief.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

On the field, aggression can sometimes be a positive emotion. It boosts performance and can lift your game. But over the years, I have learnt that restrained aggression is a better animal. That way, you will conserve your energy and won’t spend yourself quickly.

Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

Don’t bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

I don’t think I am evangelical in my work.

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

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.