To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.

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.

We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication to a process.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in the state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

I did not seek greatness. I only sought to fulfill my duties.

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

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

I hope someday to have so much of what the world calls success, that people will ask me, “What’s your secret?” and I will tell them, “I just get up again when I fall down.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

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

Impossible is just an opinion.

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

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

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.

Consensus: the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: 'I stand for consensus?

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

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

Here the people could stand it no longer and complained of the long voyage; but the Admiral cheered them as best he could, holding out good hope of the advantages they would have.

Next to the assumption of power is the responsibility of relinquishing it.