“To succeed, we must have the will to succeed, we must have stamina, determination, backbone, perseverance, self-reliance, and faith.”

An idea, like a machine, must have power applied to it before it can accomplish anything.

Without self-respect there can be no genuine success. Success won at the cost of self-respect is not success ? for what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own self-respect.

The man who is cocksure that he has arrived is ready for the return journey.

I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making.

The Bible says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Have you a vision? And are you undeviatingly pressing and pushing toward its accomplishment? Dreaming alone will not get you there. Mix your dreams with determination and action.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

Plan your work – work your plan

Kill time and you will kill your career.

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina.

Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiselingand scraping and polishing.

Bragging often precedes begging.

It’s so much easier to do good than to be good.

The man who is too busy to read is never likely to lead.

Backboneless employees are too ready to attribute the success of others to luck. Luck is usually the fruit of intelligent application. The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

The battle of yoga is with the body and with the ego. You must conquer your ego, or small self, so that you can let your soul, your big Self, be victorious.

It is no use lying to one’s self.

A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

I have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are you totally deluded in sitting down at a desk every day and trying to write something? Is it self-indulgent, or might it possibly lead to something worthwhile?

Every single time I step into the studio, I say, ‘Can I still do this? Do I still have it? Have I ever had it?’ I suppose there’s a good amount of self-loathing that goes into any form of artisanship.

You cannot have democracy without the institutions. You cannot have a democracy that is built on the moods of self-interested people.

We’re a leader sure, but still a member of the global community. And that’s true and important and when America acts like its worst self on the global stage is when we forget that.

We thought a magazine, even a self proclaimed literary review, had to be involved in politics. We felt sex was healthy and made (then) bold use of fiction and graphics so declaring. We operated on a shoestring and still got our issues out on time. In short, we had a ball.