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.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to do the work. I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually it’ll pay off. It could be in a year, it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.

Character is power.

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

It was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

Anyone can be a Superman, but nobody can be Jackie Chan.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

When you are learning about a martial art, it is about respect.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

The U.N. bureaucracy has grown to elephantine proportions. Now that the Cold War is over, we are asking that elephant to do gymnastics.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

It doesn’t matter who you are – if you dream big and if you work really hard, you can achieve unimaginable results, and that’s really good for the nation.

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.

Serious illness doesn’t bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

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

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

Sometimes I wonder why I’m a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I’m a successful writer.

You can’t stop everything from happening. But we’ve gotten to a point where we’re certainly trying. If a car doesn’t have four hundred air bags in it, then it’s no good.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

I feel that God wants me to coach; otherwise, he wouldn’t have put the desire in me.

Your life must be a progression towards ownership – first mentally of your independence, and then physically of your work, owning what you produce.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed – you’re not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.

I’ve been studying the Bible for a long time. I remember that after the first five years or so of diligently studying the Word, I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. There were a lot of things in my life that were out of order, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that’s one of the hardest things to do because you don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and you shouldn’t.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

I’m of the school of thought where, if you can’t sort something out for yourself, no one can help you. Rehab is great for some people but not others.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

If you sit there and have that mentality of ‚triple down on what you’re good at,‘ you’re never going to grow. You’re always going to stay the same.

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

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.

We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

Things do not change; we change.

I never let schooling interfere with my education.

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.

My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader.

My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you’re moving forward. All you have to do is get back up and try again.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

I do believe in self-help.

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy. Marilyn Monroe, because she was a curvy woman. I’m drawn to things that have the same kind of silhouettes as what she wore because our bodies are similar.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.