You either make dust or eat dust.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

It’s never crowded along the extra mile.

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

You see, God helps only people who work hard. That principle is very clear.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

A jug fills drop by drop.

He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!

The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass the test.

Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can’t stop marching. Even when they’re turning the hoses on you, you can’t stop.

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

You can never get enough of what you don’t want.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.

I’m always attracted to people who interest me. They’ve got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They’re interested in people.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

I don’t want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

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.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

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

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

Being humble matters.

Over the years I’ve learned how to lock myself up in a prison of hope, knowing that God has nothing but His best planned for me. He promised me things concerning my ministry and my life.

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

You gotta keep trying to find your niche and trying to fit into whatever slot that’s left for you or to make one of your own.

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

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

I want to rethink ‚surrender‘ as an active verb.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

If you have the ability to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over, you come out stronger because you learn from whatever mistakes you made.

You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.

Little things affect little minds.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

The big message of gospel is that you don’t have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.

I’m just going to say it: I’m pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done – or failed to do – with our personal values.

I’m just a kid that defied the odds. I’m just a kid that ignored the doubt. I’m just a kid from a little place in Dublin, Ireland, that went all the way, and I’m going to continue to go all the way.

Refuse to be a lazy Christian, and resist a passive, apathetic attitude.

I know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Your greatest asset is your earning ability. Your greatest resource is your time.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.