The master has failed more times than the beginner has tried.

As the pioneering physicist Benjamin Franklin put it, "In going on with these experiments, how many pretty systems do we build, which we soon find ourselves obliged to destroy?

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

The enemy is fierce and he would like for you to think that he has on. Don't believe his lie.

Defeat is not defeat unless accepted as a reality-in your own mind.

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Heaven have mercy on us all — Presbyterians and Pagans alike — for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.

I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kind of moody—desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one.

My lord, like one's cranium, it will endure till broken.

If you fall, fall on your back. If you can look up, you can get up.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise.

It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.