Janis Joplin Quotes

If a person doesn't have the capacity that we all want that person to have, I suspect hope is in the far distant future, if at all.

I have always believed that anybody with a little guts and the desire to apply himself can make it, can make anything he wants to make of himself.

I've always believed that you can be whatever you want to be if you are willing to sacrifice and dedicate yourself.

I want to do it for myself. It's my goal and dream. All I can ask for is to get the chance and go out there and do the best I can, be as ready as I can.

Every man who can be a first-rate something -- as every man can be who is a man at all -- has no right to be a fifth-rate something; for a fifth-rate something is not better than a first-rate nothing.

It doesn't matter where you came from, it doesn't matter how poor you are, it doesn't matter where your family was. It all doesn't matter. You can achieve anything if you have really clear goals and if you work really hard to learn what you need to learn.

So on the one hand in school you're teachers are constantly telling you that you can be whatever it is you want to be as long as you put your mind and heart to it, and yet at the same time I was also getting the clear message of, well, what can you do really?

You can start where you are with what you've got and go wherever it is you want to go.

Greatness is not the effect of which inspiration is the cause. We are all inspired, but we are all not great.

If you do not have goals of your own you are doomed forever to work to achieve the goals of someone else.

Self-esteem is something you have to earn! The only way to achieve self-esteem is to work hard. People have an obligation to live up to their potential.

The key is to make it.

You can determine what your future holds based on how much time and energy you spend working on yourself now. Find out what it is you want, and go after it as if your life depends on it. Why? Because it does.

First tell yourself what you want to be, then do what you need to do.

Anything that is within someone else's reach is also within yours. Set your goals no matter how impossible they may seem. Then focus on what is between you and that goal. And then, simply take out the obstacles as they come.

Don't worry. If you really want to, you will Whether you'll like it when you do is another question.

You can be anything you want to be. You can be a street sweeper, if you want. Just be the best blasted street sweeper you can be . . . And, you know you can be mayor.

Don't ever deny yourself a chance at your dreams. We're all meant for great things, but not everyone believes that can happen.

It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

It is by work that man carves his way to that measure of power which will fit him for his destiny.

I wasn't a rebel. It kind of clicked in my head, like, if I want to do this, I can go out and do it. Some kids, it clicks for them, and it doesn't work out. But thank God for me it did work out. I put in all those hard hours of work, and it has gotten me to where I am.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

I believe that anyone can be what they want to be; it just comes down to hard work.

You just have to go as far as you can go. Everyone works his way up.