What material success does is provide you with the...

I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun as we see that the shadows, which are at morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

Have regular hours for work and play make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.

I'll tell you, there is nothing better in life than being a late bloomer. I believe that success can happen at any time and at any age.