A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.
Steve Prefontaine

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
Hunter S. Thompson

The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.
Vince Lombardi

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.
Lao Tzu

Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.
John Wooden

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
Henry David Thoreau

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.
Henry David Thoreau

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
Henry David Thoreau

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.
Lao Tzu

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.
Lao Tzu

He who knows himself is enlightened.
Lao Tzu

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.
Lao Tzu

Man's enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.
Lao Tzu

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
Aristotle

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.
Theodore Roosevelt

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
Aristotle