“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
“Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It s resentment of another man s achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone s work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes,thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them - while you d give a year of my life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don t know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear. They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors - hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom - the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom. Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don t respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to? I ve felt it all my life, she said.”
“Achievement has no color”
“Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?”
“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”
“If you can t do great things, do small things in a great way.”
“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”
“What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve.”
“Acquiring wisdom is great but it is not the goal, applying it is.”
“Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That s it. And what s more, the people at the very top don t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
“And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.”
“Any blessing or achievement turns to be a curse if it s not accompanied by efforts to increase and enlarge inner capacity to handle it.”
“The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasums, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at best know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
“If my mind can conceive it, My heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it!”
“A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
“Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.”
“You don t cry when someone pushes you down. You get up. You get up and you fight back. And pretty soon nobody s going to shove you anymore because they ll see it s not worth it.”