“The price of success must be paid in full, in advance.”

“The ability to concentrate singlemindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. This key insight is the heart and soul of this book.

“When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, creatively abandon the activities that are taking up too much of your time, and focus your inward energies on alleviating your main constraints, you start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence.”

“You have within you,right now,everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”

“Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.”

“Whatever you believe, with conviction, becomes your reality.”

“Our greatest enemies are always our own doubts and fears. But there are no limits to what you can do, be, or have except for the limits you place on yourself.”

“By concentrating single-mindedly on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50 percent or more. It has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task—to pick it up, put it down, and come back to it—can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500 percent. Each time you return to the task, you have to familiarize yourself with where you were when you stopped and what you still have to do. You have to overcome inertia and get yourself going again. You have to develop momentum and get into a productive work rhythm. But when you prepare thoroughly and then begin, refusing to stop or turn aside until the job is done, you develop energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. You get better and better and more productive. You work faster and more effectively.”

“To earn more, you must learn more.”

“All change is from the inner to the outer. All change begins in the self-concept. You must become the person you want to be on the inside before you see the appearance of this person on the outside.”

“Committing your goals to paper increases the likelihood of your achieving them by one thousand percent.”

“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.”

“Sometimes we need to let go of things in our lives to make room for better things. Stress less and live more. Don't waste your energy, when you have the choice to be happy.”

“Develop the winning edge; small differences in your performance can lead to large differences in your results.”

“Anytime you stop striving to get better, you're bound to get worse.