“You can’t stop people from thinking—but you can start them.”

“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

“Saying you believe in yourself will not guarantee your success, but saying you don't believe in yourself will guarantee your failure.”

“It’s a simple thing to offer encouragement, but it can have a tremendous effect on someone’s life.”

“Have to sow excellent seeds to have an excellent life. Must start with sowing excellent thoughts.”

“Believing in the cause creates your conviction. Believing in your vision fuels your inspiration. Believing in your people builds your motivation.”

“NBA superstar David Robinson remarked, “I think any player will tell you that individual accomplishments help your ego, but if you don’t win, it makes for a very, very long season. It counts more that the team has played well.”

“Several years ago Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s book, Psycho-Cybernetics, was one of the most popular books on the market. Dr. Maltz was a plastic surgeon who often took disfigured faces and made them more attractive. He observed that in every case, the patient’s self-image rose with his and her physical improvement. In addition to being a successful surgeon, Dr. Maltz was a great psychologist who understood human nature. A wealthy woman was greatly concerned about her son, and she came to Dr. Maltz for advice. She had hoped that the son would assume the family business following her husband’s death, but when the son came of age, he refused to assume that responsibility and chose to enter an entirely different field. She thought Dr. Maltz could help convince the boy that he was making a grave error. The doctor agreed to see him, and he probed into the reasons for the young man’s decision. The son explained, “I would have loved to take over the family business, but you don’t understand the relationship I had with my father. He was a driven man who came up the hard way. His objective was to teach me self-reliance, but he made a drastic mistake. He tried to teach me that principle in a negative way. He thought the best way to teach me self-reliance was to never encourage or praise me. He wanted me to be tough and independent. Every day we played catch in the yard. The object was for me to catch the ball ten straight times. I would catch that ball eight or nine times, but always on that tenth throw he would do everything possible to make me miss it. He would throw it on the ground or over my head but always so I had no chance of catching it.” The young man paused for a moment and then said, “He never let me catch the tenth ball—never! And I guess that’s why I have to get away from his business; I want to catch that tenth ball!”

“Fellas, things are going to change. I know how bad DeMatha’s teams have been during these last few years, but that’s over with. We’re going to win at DeMatha and we’re going to build a tradition of winning. Starting right now . . . But let me tell you how we’re going to do it. We’re going to outwork every team we ever play . . . With a lot of hard work and discipline and dedication, people are going to hear about us and respect us, because DeMatha will be a winner.”

“Forty-two percent of college graduates never read a book after college.”

“How do you identify someone who needs encouragement? That person is breathing.