Ben Carson quotes: the multi-talented man’s most impressive quotes.
“We create our own destiny by the way we do things. We have to take advantage of opportunities and be responsible for our choices.”
“If we recognize our talents and use them appropriately, and choose a field that uses those talents, we will rise to the top of our field.”
“Through hard work, perseverance, and a faith in God, you can live your dreams.”
“I began to see that the person who has the most to do with you, and what happens to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision. And I came to understand that I had control of my own destiny.”
“You only have so much time in your life, and you only have so much energy. So you have to select very carefully how you’re going to spend that time and how you’re going to spend that energy. If you waste it spinning your wheels on things that are not going to change, then it deprives you of an opportunity of utilizing it on things that are going to change.”
“Success is determined not by whether or not you face obstacles, but by your reaction to them. And if you look at these obstacles as a containing fence, they become your excuse for failure. If you look at them as a hurdle, each one strengthens you for the next.”
“Successful people don’t have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.”
“I’m convinced that much of the success I have experienced in life is a result of learning from my failures.”
“When we are confronted by failure and mistakes, we can leave them behind and go on with our lives.”
“If something doesn’t work out, make sure you analyze it and try to find out why it didn’t work and don’t repeat that.”
“Even if you’re Bill Gates, you’ve got problems. I’m sure he would probably easily give a few billion dollars to get rid of all the problems that he has.”
“‘Why risk?’ I responded, ‘It should be, why not risk?'”
“Because if you don’t accept excuses, pretty soon people stop giving them, and they start looking for solutions. And that is a critical issue when it comes to success.”
“Nobody can hinder you from doing what you want, if that’s what you set your mind to. You can always find a hook to hang excuses on, but they’re only excuses. You don’t have anyone to blame but yourself. Nobody else makes you fail.”
“In any career, whether as a surgeon, a musician, or a secretary, one needs to have a confidence that says, ‘I can do anything, and if I can’t do it, I know how to get help.’”
“Influence could get me inside the door, but my productivity and the quality of my work were the real tests.”
“I came to realize that if people could make me angry they could control me. Why should I give someone else such power over my life?”
“Always give your best and try to figure out how to do an even better job.”
“Thinking big means opening our horizons, reaching for new possibilities in our lives, being open to whatever God has in store for us on the road ahead. Thinking big is another way of restating one of my mother’s favorite sayings: ‘You can do anything they can do – only you must try to do it better!’ That’s thinking big.”
“Creativity is just learning to do something with a different perspective.”
“One way to develop courage is to consider what will happen if we fail to act.”
“No matter how good you are at planning, the pressure never goes away. So I don’t fight it. I feed off it. I turn pressure into motivation to do my best.”
“Doing the right thing when it is not popular or when it is not going to get everyone’s approval is not always easy, but I am convinced that if we truly care about other people, we will go ahead and take the risk anyway.”
“I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.”
“Knowledge makes people special. Knowledge enriches life itself.”
“I am convinced that knowledge is power – to overcome the past, to change our own situations, to fight new obstacles, to make better decisions.”
“Knowledge is the key that unlocks all the doors. You can be green-skinned with yellow polka dots and come from Mars, but if you have knowledge that people need, instead of beating you, they’ll beat a path to your door.”
“No knowledge is ever wasted.”
“It does not matter where we come from or what we look like. If we recognize our abilities, are willing to learn and to use what we know in helping others, we will always have a place in the world.”
“If you hear how wonderful you are often enough, you begin to believe it, no matter how you try to resist it.”
“Do not underestimate the importance of feeling special.”
“The fact of the matter is, once I developed confidence in myself and began to believe that I was smart, then all of those innate abilities began to come out. Everybody has them, everybody who has a normal brain, because there is no such thing as an average human being. If you have a normal brain, you are superior. There’s almost nothing that you can’t do.”
“I would say that it’s extremely important to find out who you are. In order to do that you need to spend time using the greatest gift that you have. And that’s your brain. That means you talk to intelligent people, open your eyes, observe, and see what is happening around you.”
“I’m a good neurosurgeon. That’s not a boast but a way of acknowledging the innate ability God has given to me. Beginning with determination and using my gifted hands, I went on for training and to sharpen my skills.”
“You need an incredible amount of self-confidence to go digging around in someone’s brain.”
“Tell the truth. If you tell the truth all the time you don’t have to worry three months down the line about what you said three months earlier. Truth is always the truth. You won’t have to complicate your life by trying to cover up.”
“We get out of life what we put into it. The way we treat others is the way we ourselves get treated.”
“I could easily have decided that life was cruel, that being black meant everything was stacked against me.”
“I began to realize that poverty was really more of a choice than anything else and that I could change that. And it just really depended on how hard I wanted to work.”
“I don’t want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until six or seven and not be finished. I decided I’d rather work until six or seven.”
“Here is the treasure chest of the world – the public library, or a bookstore.”
“Reading activates and exercises the mind. Reading forces the mind to discriminate. From the beginning, readers have to recognize letters printed on the page, make them into words, the words into sentences, and the sentences into concepts. Reading pushes us to use our imagination and makes us more creatively inclined.”
“Reading is the way out of ignorance, and the road to achievement.”
“Happiness doesn’t result from what we get, but from what we give.”
“Great things were going to happen in my life, and I had to do my part by preparing myself and being ready.”
“I’d like to be remembered as someone who got others to recognize the potential that was within them.”
“Do your best and let God do the rest.”
