“If my father hadn’t exactly disappointed me, he remained something unknown, something volatile and vaguely threatening

“You may have the greatest vision, plans or goals as you may term it. You can call it Vison 2020, Vision 2046 or whatever. But remember, not work is done unless a distance is covered!”

“The competition physique should be as much pure lean mass as possible, with any excess body fat stripped away. As the saying goes, “You can’t flex fat.” But fat on your body makes you feel bigger than you actually are, and this sense of being bigger is psychologically satisfying to most bodybuilders.”

“One dark night the skeletons that they had carefully hidden in an obscure closet appeared, grabbed them around the throat, and strangled them.”

“Don't worry when you are not recognized but strive to be worthy of recognition”

“Adversity kills fearful people just by showing them its weapons. As to whether that weapon is fatal or fake, they don't care to know before they surrender!”

“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”

“I had the happy privilege of analyzing both Mr. Edison and Mr. Ford, year by year, over a long period of years, and therefore, the opportunity to study them at close range, so I speak from actual knowledge when I say that I found no quality save persistence, in either of them, that even remotely suggested the major source of their stupendous achievements.”

“We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.”

“This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there’s a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.”

“My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.”

“When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”

“You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream.”

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”

“Always keep in mind that training stimulates growth, but that actual growth takes place while you are resting.”