When you are fitted in a racing car and you race to win, second or third place is not enough.

If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn’t give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.

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

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.

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.

You do projects with the hope they will be big and hope they will go beyond what you imagine.

I’m a big perfectionist! I’m trying to channel super-confident women like Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Beyonce, because I realized that if you want something, you really have to go for it, just like they do.

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

Duke is an ugly word in Kentucky. Nothing in the world compares to the joy of beating those hateful swine from Duke.

I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.

Luck marches with those who give their very best.

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.

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

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

One thing Britons have always been celebrated for, and that is being able to stick it out in a tight place.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.

I know Elon, we’re very like minded in many ways. We’re not conceptual twins. One thing I want us to do is go to Mars, but for me it’s one thing. He’s singularly focused on that. I think motivation wise, for me I don’t find that Plan B idea motivating. I don’t want a plan B for Earth, I want Plan B to make sure Plan A works.

All I ever wanted to do with my life was own a little house. I did that way back with ‚Rocky,‘ so now everything I do is just icing on the cake.

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

What is Champions League level? I saw a lot of rubbish games at Champions League level.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

I had this dream, and I really wanted to be a star. And I was almost a monster in the way that I was really fearless with my ambitions.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was ‚satisfactory,‘ I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?

Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

Just as I wanted to outdo everyone when I played, I had to outdo everyone when we were out on the town.

Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

I think the message has already been sent to Hollywood, which is that this kid’s a hard worker, he’s talented, and people are coming out to see him. And when you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up.

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

This lady is not for turning.

I wanted to sell a million records, and I sold a million records. I wanted to go platinum; I went platinum. I’ve been working nonstop since I was 15. I don’t even know how to chill out.

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

I never expect to lose. Even when I’m the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

There is always room for losers in the football business. They are the mother’s milk of gambling, and why not? Somebody has to do it, or there won’t be any winners.

The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle.

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.