100 Life Lessons from the Greatest Americans in History

Never allow someone to be your priority, while allowing yourself to be their option. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. There are so many women with whom you can sleep, and so few women with whom you can talk. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. But the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system. For if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Never buy a thing seduced by its cheapness. Such a thing, in the long run, will cost you dearly. When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. There is only one way to get the best of an argument, and that is to avoid it. Nothing gives you more advantages over others than the ability to remain calm and cool in any situation. Decision-making, like coffee, needs a cooling process. Beware those who seek constant crowds, for they are nothing alone. The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much and forgetting that you are special, too. Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many. The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. If you always have faith and trust in yourself, there is no limit to the places you will go. When something bad happens, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you. Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it. Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn how to walk. The honesty of people does not increase with their wealth. Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today. Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best. Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame. I think it's important to have a good hard failure when you're young. I learned a lot out of that because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. How much we suffered because of what did not happen, but could only happen. The first man gets the oyster. The second man gets the shell. You should always try to turn every disaster into an opportunity. My belief is firm in the law of compensation. The true rewards are ever in proportion to the labor and sacrifices made. Don't spend money you don't have. I'm a greater believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. Believe nothing you hear and only one half that you see. Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. There is no other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. By faithfully working 12 hours a day, you may eventually get to be the boss and work 14 hours a day. The greatest thing we can produce is character. Everything else can be taken from us, but not our character. The only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the other person wants. If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy. Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. It is better to be alone than in bad company. Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself. To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions. When you feel discouraged, seek healing in labor. Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. Criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. He who works all day has no time to make money. The best way out is always through. Our cup will truly run over only after we have sealed the character cracks. Whatever you do, the successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way. Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed. Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages. Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again. This time, more intelligently. Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time. Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. If you're going to try, go all the way. Don't even start. It is better to offer no excuse. To the world, you may be one person. But to one person, you may be the world. Cultivate the habit of getting up early. It is unreasonable to keep your head on the same level with your feet for a long time. Two roads diverged and I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him. We're stronger in the places that we've been broken. The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. Saving on advertising is like stopping a clock to save time. He who gives up his freedom for security receives neither. The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crisis are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved. Everyone needs deadlines, even the beavers. They loaf around all summer, but when they are faced with the winter deadline, they work like fury. If we didn't have deadlines, we'd stagnate. Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. For your character is what you are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. Our brain has very sensitive nerve cells which allow us to feel the truth even when it is not yet available. Wherever the crowd goes, run in the other direction. They're always wrong. Buy land. They're not making it anymore. To persevere in one's duty and to be silent is the best answer to calumny. Knowledge isn't power until it is applied. You can change your life by changing your attitude. One who has nothing to do with thorns should never try to pick flowers. Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment. Find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it. With every bit of energy, ambition, and natural ability, half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. What you get from an experience will be equivalent to the effort you put into it. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing. Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will keep it. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. We must consult our means rather than our wishes. The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into the office. Fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind. Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life, so aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. You will observe that the stories told are all about money seekers, not about money finders. The secret to being creative alone, ideas are born in loneliness. Only two people will tell the truth about you. Good fences make good neighbors. Do more. The race is won by the horse that outstrips its rivals by a head. There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it, and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. Too often people complain that they have done nothing with their lives, and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn't so. Pay less attention to what men say. Just watch what they do. You may delay, but time will not. The best way to predict your future is to create it. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. Real men despise battle, but will never run from it. A mother takes 20 years to make a man out of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in 20 minutes. The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique. In relationships, tragedy begins not when there is a misunderstanding of words, but when silence is incomprehensible. We crave for new sensations, but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today's common occurrences. He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it the second time. This man is the richest, whose pleasures are the cheapest. Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person's own mind than on the externals in the world. If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes. Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and twice as beautiful as you've ever imagined. The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself. The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will. Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone. 99% of failures are the ones who make excuses. That some achieve great success is proof to all that others can achieve it as well. It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always. The secret to success is to do the common things uncommonly well. If you don't want anything for a long time, most likely it's time to start working. Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more. If they say bad things about you, then they just envy you. There is no man living that cannot do more than he thinks he can. The past cannot become the present. We cannot know what we do not know, but the past, present, and future are hidden under one veil. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what yourself already know. There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy. Something we are withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves. Things do not grow better. They remain as they are. It is we who grow better by the changes we make in ourselves. There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self. The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. If you can dream it, you can do it. It's not about what you look at, it's about what you see. Avoid a man who pretends to be your friend. Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something. Go as far as you can see. When you get there, you'll be able to see farther. Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. For our suspicions, we pay by finding what we suspected. The heart of the conflict, the greater the triumph. The best things and the best people rise out of their separateness. Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors. Avoid sex in old age. After it comes to kissing and then talking. Some people like what you do. Some people hate what you do. But most people simply don't give a damn. Every man is the builder of the temple by which his body is called. If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge experience. In the end, it is not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. People become lonely in old age because in their youth, they didn't cultivate relationships and connections that could have sustained them through the ups and downs of life. People don't have many friends because as kids, they didn't learn to trust people. It's never too late to start building meaningful relationships and investing in the people around you. The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it. If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger, portion of truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant. Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on. A man's wealth must be determined by the relation of his desires and expenditures to his income. If he feels rich on ten dollars and has everything else he desires, he really is rich. Loneliness in old age is the price people pay for a lifetime spent chasing trivial things. They spend their best years running after shadows, only to find, when the dust settles, they've traded the sun for a flickering candle. As long as there's breath in their lungs, there's still time to strike a match and find some real light. Let's not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Remember, life is too short to be little.