Change doesn't come in nickels and dimes. It comes in dedication and sweat.

~ Toni Sorenson

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient observation than to any other reason. 

~ Isaac Newton, physicist, mathematician, and philosopher (1642-1727) 

Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. 

~  John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923) 

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. 

~ Napoleon Hill

Don’t be threatened by people smarter than you. 

~ Howard Schultz

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. 

~ Calvin Coolidge

If you ask me what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.

~ George Burns

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been." 

~ John Greenleaf Whittier, poet (1807-1892) 

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman. 

~ George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952) 

I believe that life can go on forever. It takes a million years to evolve a new species, ten million for a new genus, one hundred million for a class, a billion for a phylum -- and that's usually as far as your imagination goes. In a billion years, it seems, intelligent life might be as different from humans as humans are from insects. But what would happen in another ten billion years? It's utterly impossible to conceive of ourselves changing as drastically as that, over and over again. All you can say is, on that kind of time scale the material form that life would take is completely open. To change from a human being to a cloud may seem a big order, but it's the kind of change you'd expect over billions of years. 

~ Freeman Dyson, physicist (b. 1923) 

The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent for luck. 

~ Hector Berlioz, composer (1803-1869) 

You shouldn't focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions. 

~ Steve Case, co-founder of AO

There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.

~ Jason Fried, founder of 37signal.

Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe. 

~ John Milton, poet (1608-1674)

The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be. 

~ Louis de Bernieres, novelist (b. 1954) 

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. 

~ Christina Rossetti, poet (1830-1894) 

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it. 

~ Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902) 

A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. 

~ Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924) 

The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life. 

~ Seneca

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. 

~  Mark Twain