First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.

How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?

Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.

We do not do what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are—that is a fact.

Let us resolve to be masters, not victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.

A winner never taught me how to quit.

If people knew how hard worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.

Half-finished work generally proves to be labor lost.

Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.

The way you habitually think will determine your destiny.

Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain forever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I transgress it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.

Unsuccessful people make decisions based on current situations. Successful people make decisions based on where they want to be.

The higher you soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.

You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.

In life, all good things come hard, but wisdom is the hardest to come by.

Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you. Amen.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man’s own observation, what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.

The wise man accepts his pain, endures it, but does not add to it.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.