What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. "

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my ashes should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."

"DO NOT RESIST CHANCES. Take them like vitamins. Let go of the brakes. See what happens if you go five more miles. Footbridges be damned, find your own way across. Don’t worry about the bumps and bruises. Your body can take them. Don’t steer around the bits that scare you, go over them, go through them. Do something the guys in the (game) would be terrified of. You feel your chin rise up from your chest, and you’ll be able to see what’s around you. What’s ahead of you. And there will be one less thing you cannot do. JUST DO IT. "

"There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. The only real failure is the failure to try. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. Nothing happens unless first we dream. We get up in the morning. We do our best. Nothing else matters. This is a new and different world. The challenge is to cope with it. Not just cope but thrive. All we know about the future is that it will be different. Most things don’t work out as expected, but what happens instead often turns out to be the good stuff. Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right then it's not the end."

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people 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. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”