The great thing about America is that you can come from the worst circumstances and become something remarkable.

How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

It’s life isn’t it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.

Great industries are never made from single companies. There is room in space for a lot of winners.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

People just don’t understand how obsessed I am with winning.

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

This healthy eating stuff, it’s here to stay, and we now have everything we need to seize the opportunity and give all our kids the healthy futures they so richly deserve.

The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

For me, education has never been simply a policy issue – it’s personal. Neither of my parents and hardly anyone in the neighborhood where I grew up went to college. But thanks to a lot of hard work and plenty of financial aid, I had the opportunity to attend some of the finest universities in this country.

Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they’re rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

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.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

From 1945 to 1974, the Western world – including America – was more socialistic than capitalistic, more pro-labor than pro-business.

I feel that I’ve done what I wanted to do, and that makes me feel fairly content.

In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

To make America the greatest is my goal, so I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole. And for the U.S.A. won the medal of gold. The Greeks said, ‚You’re better than the Cassius of old.‘

Like so many American families, our families weren’t asking for much. They didn’t begrudge anyone else’s success or care that others had much more than they did… in fact, they admired it.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.

I will keep America moving forward, always forward, for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand Points of Light. This is my mission, and I will complete it.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

Of course awards matter.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

Ladies and gentlemen, god bless America – land of the free, home of the brave.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

Mr. T. been to chemo, Mr. T been to radiation, hair fall out… but he’s back. Now I can give hope when I go to the hospital, see the sick kids with cancer, tell them, don’t quit.

I pity the fool who just gives up.

Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

I’ve said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

We must think and act like a nation of a billion people and not like that of a million people. Dream, dream, dream!

If you look at the history of Notre Dame, if you hire a coach who’s been successful at another college program, they’re going to be ultra successful at Notre Dame because the talent will always be there.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

When you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture.