The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add up to the person you become.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

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.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

Every President wants to do right.

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

Ego is only fine when it is working for your motivation.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids‘ dreams, but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We’ve all stumbled, and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes. As I go to sleep at night, I think, ‚Did I do a great job as a mom, or was that an average day?‘

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

As is the case with most people in this game, I am driven by financial motives and creative motives; the question I had to answer is which motive I will give priority to?

The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.

Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

I always make my dreams into goals.

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

One of the things I’ve told men over and over and over and over is if you’re being rejected by all the women that you approach, it’s not the women!

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

Education can become a self-fulfilling activity, liberating in and of itself.

As a child, when asked what I would be, I usually said I was going to be a huntsman. A fine profession, truly!

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

I believe God, Jesus, died that we not just go to Heaven but that we excel in this life. I never think you make money your goal… God wants you to excel. Just keep Him in first place, and God will open up doors you never dreamed of.

There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‚That person I see is a savage monster;‘ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I’m working on the foundation.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

Often, in the real world, it’s not the smart that get ahead but the bold.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

Once I’ve decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.