The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership, by sheer force of self-confidence, bravery and tenacity.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

They naturally thought that anyone who was good should have a very high rank.

Sir Edmund Hillary, Everest’s first conqueror, once said that the mountains gave him strength. I’d never really understood this until now. But it was intoxicating.
Something deep inside me knew that I could do this.

History allows us to see patterns and make judgments. It sketches for us the structures within which we can seek freedom. It reveals moments, each one of them different, none entirely unique. To understand one moment is to see the possibility of being the cocreator of another. History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something. The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz thought that such a notion of responsibility worked against loneliness and indifference. History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.

History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something... History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.

I could see it. I could almost feel it. When I proclaimed that I was the greatest of all time, I believed in myself, and I still do.

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.

If you only had brains in your head you would be as good a man as any of them, and a better man than some of them.

The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.

"Recordemos que Emerson dijo: "Todos los hombres que encuentro son superiores a mí en algún sentido; y en tal sentido puedo aprender de todos"."

I am the end product of thousands of years of evolution; therefore, I am better equipped in both mind and body than all the emperors and wise men who preceded me.

The history of the world is but a biography of great men.

I am so old that I can remember when other people’s achievements were considered to be an inspiration, rather than a grievance.