determination quotes

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

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.

When I get on a roll with something, it’s really hard for me to put it down unfinished.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

I am in the fighting game. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.

I’m gonna be making records anyway, even if I had to sell ‚em out of the trunk of my car. I’m that kind of musician and singer.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

When we make progress quickly, it feeds our emotions. Then, when there’s a period of waiting or we hit a plateau, we find out how committed we really are and whether we’re going to see things through to the finish or quit.

I can’t do nothing just a little.

I have worked hard since my childhood and worked as a labourer. I put my mind and heart into it.

I never expect to lose. Even when I’m the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

I have a deep, deep belief that if I tell you I’m going to crack you with a clean shot to the chin inside one minute of the first round and you will be unconscious, well, then that’s what will happen.

We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.

I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough – when they are on the very brink of success.

Under the worst conditions, horrendous conditions, people still, you know, fight for their rights and don’t just succumb.

When I do something, I do it full steam ahead.

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

I will never retire unless I have to.

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

I didn’t work hard to sit down and not work.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

I couldn’t ever go back home without being something. I probably would never have gone back home. That was definitely a big motivation. To get back home, and not empty-handed.

It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

I should be a postage stamp, because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked. I’m beautiful. I’m fast. I’m so mean I make medicine sick. I can’t possibly be beat.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

We clearly see in God’s Word that anything He tells us to do, He will give us the ability to do it. But do we really believe it? Do we want to believe it? It’s easier to come up with excuses for why we can’t do things that are hard or that we really don’t want to do.

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

The United States and our allies are determined: we refuse to live in the shadow of this ultimate danger.

We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter, and we will not fail. Peace and Freedom will prevail.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

What is once well done is done forever.

Giving up cannot be an option.

Success is not a stop sign.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

You either make dust or eat dust.

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn’t start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

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

Every night on the court I give my all, and if I’m not giving 100 percent, I criticize myself.

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you’re glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.

I love having my hands in the dirt. It is never a science and always an art. There are no rules. And if it comes down to me versus that weed I’m trying to pull out of the ground that doesn’t want to come out? I know I’ll win.

I tend not to really think about what other people say. I’d rather just try and focus on what I’m doing, try and win basically.

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.