It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.

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 only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.

Anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you’re both engaged in the same business – you know they’re doing something that you aren’t.

I’m not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance.

Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any man or order of men.

While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed—there's so little competition.

Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people.

You have competition every day because you set such high standards for yourself that you have to go out every day and live up to that.

Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good someone else.

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

Against all odds and despite all the obstacles, we are going to make it.

You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.

Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.

For great and low there's but one test: 'Tis that each man do his best.

The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Half-finished work generally proves to be labor lost.

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

Faced with a mountain, I will not quit. I will keep on striving until I climb over it, find a path through it, tunnel under it, or simply stay and turn it into a gold mine.

To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

The secret of success is conviction and persistence.

Football is like life—it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.

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

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