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There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Intentions often melt in the face of unexpected opportunity.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

Potential means you haven't done anything yet.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The 'sure thing' boat never gets far from shore.

I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.

..you don't search for an idea. You search for questions. Every single major piece of work I have been involved with came because some great student asked me a question that I could only stare at and say, "that's a great question. I will have to get back to you."

Never ignore a coincidence. Ever. It is a message that breaks through the same old patterns and often is a golden opportunity. You just need to figure out what kind. The important part is letting go of the idea of how things should be and trusting that you don't know the big picture.

Â…I use coincidences as a way of thinking creativelyÂ…The universe is radically ambiguous. We give meaning to everything...My point is that you can take a coincidence and interpret it with meaning. This starts a process of associations that you normally wouldn't have been aware of.

A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Lazy orthodoxies can allow new entrants to thrive in niches that seem full of capable incumbents.

Strategic thinking is essentially a substitute for having clear connections between the positions we take and their economic outcomes.

Strategic thinking helps us take positions in a world that is confusing and uncertain. You can't get rid of ambiguity and uncertainty-they are the flip side of opportunity. If you want certainty and clarity, wait for others to take a position and see how they do. Then you'll know what works, but it will be too late to profit from the knowledge.

Most organizations staff their problems and starve their opportunities. When people begin to start talking about problems, I say, 'No, wait a minute. Let's first look at the opportunities.'

Luck waits to come to that man who accepts opportunity.

We mortals are changeable. Alas, I must say more apt to change our minds when right than wrong. Wrong, we are stubborn indeed. Right, we are prone to vacillate and let opportunity escape.

Opportunists are humble enough to realize that the random forces of nature are more powerful than themselves. That these random forces often conspire to make things ridiculously easy just as often as they conspire to create hurricanes and earthquakes. Most people realize that a lot depends on being in the right place at the right time. Very few realize that this situation is not the outcome of hard work or trying to identify and move to hotspots. It is the outcome of a cultivated ability at recognizing when you are randomly in the right place at the right time (which also implies that there must be a certain amount of deliberate randomness in your wandering through life).

We see problems, not as they are, but as we are. That's why attitude plays such a crucial role in separating those who lead from those who follow. Alfred Armand Montapert said, "The majority see the obstacles; the few see the objectives; history records the successes of the latter, while oblivion is the reward of the former."