“You perform at your highest potential only when you are focusing on the most valuable use of your time. This is the key to personal and business success. It is the central issue in personal efficiency and time management. You must always be asking yourself, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? Discipline yourself to work exclusively on the one task that, at any given time, is the answer to this question. Keep yourself on track and focused on your most important responsibilities by asking yourself, over and over, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? How you can apply this law immediately: 1. Remember that you can do only one thing at a time. Stop and think before you begin. Be sure that the task you do is the highest-value use of your time. Remind yourself that anything else you do while your most important task remains undone is a relative waste of time. 2. Be clear about the most valuable work that you do for your organization. Whatever it is, resolve to concentrate on doing that specific task before anything else. Why are you on the payroll? What specific, tangible, measurable results are expected of you? And of all the different results you are capable of achieving, which are the most important to your career at this moment? Whatever the answer, this is where you must focus your energies, and nowhere else.”

“You can’t help the poor by becoming one of them.”

“The fact is that your productivity begins to decline after eight or nine hours of work. For this reason, working long hours into the night, although it is sometimes necessary, means that you are usually producing less and less in more and more time. The more tired you become, the worse the quality of your work will be and the more mistakes you will make. At a certain point, you can reach “the wall” and simply be unable to continue, like a battery that is run down.”

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and  farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your  thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”

“Only people can be made to increase in value. Computers and other equipment depreciate and eventually become obsolete.”

“There are a thousand excuses for failure but never a good reason.” —MARK TWAIN”

“The biggest enemies we have to overcome on the road to success are not lack of ability and lack of opportunity but fears of failure and rejection and the doubts that they trigger.”

“I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more  chances, Be more active, Show up more often.”

“Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” 

“The key to success is action.”

“How shall we live in order to be happy?” Your ability to ask and answer that question correctly for yourself—and then to follow where your answer leads you—will largely determine whether you achieve your own happiness, and how soon.”

“Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete.

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself and be lenient to everyone else.” —HENRY WARD BEECHER, NINETEENTH-CENTURY CLERGYMAN”

“Positive expectations are the mark of the superior personality.”

“Discipline is what you must have to resist the lure of excuses. It is self-discipline that enables you to “vote yourself off the island.” It is the key to a great life and, without it, no lasting success is possible.”