You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‚Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

If you can be mentally stimulated by the workout and find out how to get through it, it’s more fun.

My drive is other people’s success.

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

Don’t program yourself to break down as you age with thoughts that decline is inevitable. Time may be passing for our bodies, but because they house our ageless souls, we never need to see ourselves as old and infirm.

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

Once you start a working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.

I’m no natural beauty. If I’m gonna have any looks at all, I’m gonna have to create them.

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

I’m not as goal obsessed as I am process obsessed.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.

I have practically no private life. I’m already used to this and ready for it. Yes, sometimes it is hard, but it is the choice I made.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

I’ll never make it, it will never happen, because they’re never going to hear me ‚cause they’re screaming all the time.

Better is the enemy of good.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.

God’s desire is that we excel.

Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.

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.

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

You know, T can stand for anything. T stand for working hard. T stand for loving thy neighbor. T stand for feeding the hungry. T stand for just working, working, working, being happy on the set, you know, lifting everybody’s spirits. T stands for just a nice guy.

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

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

I don’t want to make money; I want to make a difference.

And so our goal on health care is, if we can get, instead of health care costs going up 6 percent a year, it’s going up at the level of inflation, maybe just slightly above inflation, we’ve made huge progress. And by the way, that is the single most important thing we could do in terms of reducing our deficit. That’s why we did it.

Why did I become Jackie Chan? Mostly because I work very hard. When people were sleeping, I was still training.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

I’d rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right, even when you’re not sure it is.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

I know so many people who feel hopeless, and they ask me, ‚What should I do?‘ And I say: ‚Act. Do something.‘ Because that is the best medicine against sadness and depression.

I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

I feel very strongly that SpaceX would not have been able to get started, nor would we have made the progress that we have, without the help of NASA.

I want to challenge you today to get out of your comfort zone. You have so much incredible potential on the inside. God has put gifts and talents in you that you probably don’t know anything about.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

I don’t have a problem with ageing – in fact, I embrace that aspect of it. And am able to and obviously am going to be able to quite easily… it doesn’t faze me at all.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.