Ad astra per aspera. (To the stars through difficulties.)

Every worthwhile accomplishment big or little has its stages of drudgery and triumph a beginning a struggle and a victory.

The single most significant factor, he realized, was a sense of future vision—the impelling conviction of those who were to survive that they had a mission to perform, some important work left to do.1 Survivors of POW camps in Vietnam and elsewhere have reported similar experiences: a compelling, future-oriented vision is the primary force that kept many of them alive.

"Lift off" takes a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the gravity pull, our freedom takes on a whole new dimension.

I tried to slip past her again, but she blocked my path and then stomped her foot down in front of me again, pretending like she was Gandalf and I was the balrog.

Life was like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced video game. But sometimes the game can have a surprise ending. And sometimes, when you think you've reached the end of the game, suddenly you find yourself standing in front of a whole new level. A level you've never seen before. And the only thing you can do is keep right on playing.

Perseverance does not mean "perfection." It means that we keep going. We do not quit when we find that we are not yet mature and there is a long journey still before us.

The ideal course of life is not always easy.

I think if you put a timeframe on things, you can start rushing things and getting away from the goals, so I try to take it day by day and make sure I keep improving.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn't.

some of us have so much defeat in our past that we feel we lost the race before we knew it started.

Every accountable child of God needs to set goals, short- and long-range goals. A man who is pressing forward to accomplish worthy goals can soon put despondency under his feet, and once a goal is accomplished, others can be set up.