One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.

How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.

I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.

There is nothing in the world that empowers a human being to overcome external difficulties or internal hardships so much as the awareness that one has a task in life.

If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck.

The minute you get away from fundamentals—whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation—the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you're doing.

The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision.

Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

What I do is prepare myself until I know I can do what I have to do.

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

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

Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently.

It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.

If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.

This is the law: The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts.

I had made the religion of service my own, as I felt that God could be realized only through service.

The golden rule for every business man is this: ‘Put yourself in your customer’s place.’

The Golden Rule finds no limit of application in business.

The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

The generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

My own art is a negation of society, an affirmation of the individual, outside all rules and demands of society.

All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions but follows religiously the new.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most impressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be saturated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, butt in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support—kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’.

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

Don’t make yourself miserable with what is to come or not to come.

Either you run the day, or the day runs you.

The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.