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

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

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.

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others‘ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

I’ve written some great things. That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.

Winning is the most important. Everything is consequence of that.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

Americans play to win at all times. I wouldn’t give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor ever lose a war.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

What’s amazing is, if young people understood how doing well in school makes the rest of their life so much interesting, they would be more motivated. It’s so far away in time that they can’t appreciate what it means for their whole life.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

Successful people are simply those with successful habits.

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

We work to become, not to acquire.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.

In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there’s such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success.

I have dreams, and I want to see them come to fruition.

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‚Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?‘ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.

I will never retire unless I have to.

Success is always dangerous, and we need to be alert and avoid becoming the victims of our own success. Will we influence the world for Christ, or will the world influence us?

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.

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

Someone said to me, ‚If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?‘ My answer was then and still is, ‚If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.‘

I worked my face off.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‚em, ‚Certainly I can!‘ Then get busy and find out how to do it.

Fight with a happy heart.

When I prepare, I am not messing around. I find the right places, the right people, and the right environment. Iceland is one of those places.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

Not having hope is not an excuse for not doing something.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

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.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems… It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

I wish everyone well, but you need to focus on yourself. You need to stop putting your hand out. Everyone wants hand outs. Everyone wants things for free. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to grind. You’ve got go through the struggle, and you’ve got to get it.

I remember they used to tell me, they said, ‚Khaled, you can’t get a Rolls-Royce; you need to get one of them small ones.‘ So I went and bought a Phantom.