If you do not rise when you do not want to, you will not arrive when you want to.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Don’t be ‘a writer’. Be writing.

I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

You have no idea what your legacy will be. Your legacy is what you do every day. Your legacy is every life you’ve touched, every person whose life was either moved or not. It’s every person you’ve harmed or helped. That’s your legacy.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.

Fundamentally, there are only to ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion — the technique of the army and the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation — the technique of the marketplace.

He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.

We don’t choose to be role models; we are chosen. Our only choice is whether to be a good role model or a bad one.

It is the responsibility of leadership to work intelligently with what is given, and not to waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, buy you will never imprison my mind.

You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.

It is very important to know who you are. To make decisions. To show who you are.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the induction of a new order of things.

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

Instead of dirt and poison we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

You and only you are responsible for your life choices and decisions.

The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

It is your decisions, and not your conditions, that determine your destiny.

Are you one of the flock that follows, or Are you one that shall lead the way?

The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future, too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent or hinder or control. The firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; All things give way before it, soon or late.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible. Then they seem improbable. And then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

What though strength fails? Boldness is certain to win praise. In mighty enterprises, it is enough to have had the determination.

This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.

Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature; these are the spur and reins whereby al mankind are set on work, and guided.

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence—that will enable you to attain the success you seek.

The change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

If you develop a pure and sincere motivation, in you are motivated by a wish to help on the basis of kindness, compassion, and respect, then you can carry on any kind of work, in any field, and function more effectively.