Speech conquers thought but writing commands it.

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

“Your reputation has preceded you.” That’s what a reputation is supposed to do.

Brevity is power.

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.

He who knows the road does not join the caravan.

Many times the best way, in fact the only way, to learn is through mistakes. A fear of making mistakes can bring individuals to a standstill, to a dead center. Fear is the wicked weed that transforms human beings into vegetables.

It’s not enough to be talented. It’s not enough to work hard and to study late into the night. You must also become intimately aware of the methods you can use to reach your decisions.

If critics and competitors can’t match your results, they will often denigrate the way you achieve them. Fast, intuitive types are called lazy. Dedicated burners of midnight oil are called obsessed. And while it’s obviously not a bad idea to hear and consider the opinions of others, you should be suspicious when these criticisms emerge right on the heels of a success.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best teach it to dance.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he hears.

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway.

A person’s mood is like a symphony, and serotonin is like the conductor’s baton.

Looking can tire you even when you don't see anything.

Sooner or later we must all sit down to a banquet of consequences and hard choices.

You’ve got to do your own growing up, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

It is a funny thing about life—if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.

It is often observed that certain brilliant people “don’t suffer fools gladly.” But the more common experience of mankind is that fools don’t suffer brilliant people gladly.

You have to go broke three times to learn how to make a living.

Most ball games are lost, not won.

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free.

Wind supports all flags no matter what the flag supports.

The distance a goldfish swims is not controlled by the bowl.

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

…writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something sometime in your life.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Life is too short to be small.

The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.

Don’t find fault. Find a remedy.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No! Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.

No matter how much cats fight, there always seems to be plenty of kittens.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into writing it.

The building block of the sciences is the discovery. The building block of the arts is the artist.

For the ignorant, old age is winter; for the learned, it is the harvest.

There is a crack in everything. It’s how the light gets in.

If you miss the first buttonhole, you can’t ever get fully buttoned up.

When a rainbow has lasted as long as a quarter of an hour we stop looking at it.

Water deepens where it has to wait.

The worst helplessness is forgetting there is help.

Patience is not very different from courage. It just takes longer.

The man who sticks to his plan will become what he used to want to be.

No pressure, no diamonds.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

The difference between an American and a European is that, to an American, a hundred years is a long time, and to a European, a hundred miles is a long journey.

Never forget that amateurs built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic.

Half of being smart is knowing what you’re dumb at.

Camel: a horse designed by a committee.

All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

You don’t get to be pharaoh by working hard on the pyramid.

Those who have free seats at the play hiss first.

You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb.

No trap is so deadly as the one you set for yourself.

One is left with a harsh truth: shortcuts cut you short and leave you short.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.

Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness. I have found that great people do have in common an immense belief in themselves and in their mission. They also have great determination as well as an ability to work hard. At the crucial moment of decision, they draw on their accumulated wisdom. Above all, they have integrity.

I’ve also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Explain nothing. Put it there. Say it. Leave.