Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.

Do not let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do.

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.

If you’re going through Hell, keep going.

Issue a blanket pardon. Forgive everyone who has ever hurt you in any way. Forgiveness is a perfectly selfish act. It sets you free from the past.

Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.

Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Count the garden by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall. Count your life with smiles and not the tears that roll.

If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do, than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can change his life by changing his attitude of mind.

Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

The darkest hour has only sixty minutes.

Accept challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.

Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget about everything except what you're going to do now - and do it.

Minds are like parachutes, they function only when open.

Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does his master's chaise. Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.

Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don't see the one that has opened for us.

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

No one is perfect that's why pencils have erasers.

In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other countries, we are not only living off our assets and denying our own people the proper enjoyment of their resources; we are also denying the world the example of a free society enjoying its freedom to the fullest.

A vegan diet is one of the best things you can do for your health and the well being of our planet.

Eccentricity comes from the mind and a playfulness about life and language manifesting itself in real individualistic character.

I realize I love crazy ladies. Of course I don't like to think of myself as one, but maybe I am, too. I dunno. I'm always drawn to them; I think it's because I'm attracted to people who aren't in the business of people-pleasing: saying what they really think, not passive-aggressive at all.

My mother introduced me to more academic-minded writers, Cornel West and Skip Gates. In her library, I came across, when I was very young, Harold Cruse's 'The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual,' which is like a bible of Negro intellectuals from Frederick Douglass to Amiri Baraka.

My parents are proud to be Canadian, as I am. They had a lot to do with my success and sacrificed a lot over the years.

I have tried so hard to do right.