Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

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

As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

Adopt responsibility for your own well-being, try to put your family together, try to serve your community, try to seek for eternal truth… That’s the sort of thing that can ground you in your life, enough so that you can withstand the difficulty of life.

You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

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

Pessimism never won any battle.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

I love getting out of my comfort zone.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

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

Managers today have to do more with less, and get better results from limited resources, more than ever before.

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

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don’t sell that many records.

As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

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.

I nearly failed when Virgin was in its infancy; I nearly failed in the early 1980s, and, of course, I have nearly died more than once trying to achieve a world record for boating or ballooning. But through a combination of luck and planning, both Virgin and I are still here.

People say ‚I want to be rich‘. The question is, ‚Are you willing to do what it takes?‘

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

I’m a decent cook; I’m a decent chef. None of my friends would ever have hired me at any point in my career. Period.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

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.

You can change your world by changing your words… Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

Character is destiny.

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

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!

You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

Prayer doesn’t just change things – it changes us. If we are diligent in seeking God, slowly and surely we become better people.

I came, I saw, I conquered.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

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

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

Critics only make you stronger. You have to look at what they are saying as feedback. Sometimes the feedback helps, and other times, it’s just noise that can be a distraction.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can’t have.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

Coaching wouldn’t be for me. No, certainly not.

We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

I want a president with a record of public service: someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase form and fortune for ourselves; we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

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