"You have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself"
Miles Davis, American jazz musician

"It is no profit to have learned well, if you neglect to do well."
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)

"If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom."
Sidney Madwed

"To do two things at once is to do neither."
Publilius Syrus, (~100 BC)

"I've failed more times than I can remember. But I never chalked any of them up as failures in my head, because I learned so much in the process each time. So now, when I’ve finally reached a point where things seem to fall into place with far less effort, I can’t help but think about all those times where I didn’t succeed over the course of the last eight years. And I look back in fondness, because those lessons learned are the reason I’m here.

I actually shouldn’t even call them failures, because they were really just attempts. There’s a huge difference there. Everyone has failures, but most people never attempt things just for the sake of trying out something that looks fun, interesting, or challenging. For some reason, a lot of us reach a point where we stop doing things for the hell of it.

And therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don't. No one does. You shouldn't be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren't real and they were created by other people, not you."
Charlie Hoehn

"I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying."
Michael Jordan, US basketball player (1963 - )

"An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied."
Arnold Glasow

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure."
Mark Twain, Letter to Mrs Foote, Dec. 2, 1887
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't as all. You can be discouraged by failure - or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that's where you will find success."
Thomas J. Watson

"Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings."
Arthur Rubinstein (1886 - 1982)

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out."
Art Linkletter

"When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either."
Leo Burnett

"...Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, one moment,
Would you capture it, or just let it slip, yo...

...The moment, you own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a life-time, yo ...

...You can do anything you set your mind to man. ..."
Eminem

"Your identity and your success go hand in hand. Many people sacrifice their identities by not doing what they really want to do. And that's why they're not successful."
Lila Swell

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."
Michael J. Fox (1961 - ), quoted by Lorne A. Adrain in 'The Most Important Thing I Know'

"There is nothing greater than touching the shore after crossing some great body of water knowing that I've done it with my own two arms and legs."
Diana Nyad

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
Anais Nin (1903 - 1977), The Diary of Anais Nin, volume 3, 1939-1944

"Calvin: If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0"
From the irresistible Calvin & Hobbes series

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;*
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! "

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
English writer &, poet
from Rewards and Fairies, 1910, If

*These two lines are inscribed over the door to the center court at Wimbledon.