Wings of Fire: An Autobiography (Digital Exclusive Edition)

by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts."

"To succeed in life and achieve results, you must understand and master three mighty forces— desire, belief, and expectation."

before anything I wanted could happen, I had to desire it intensely and be absolutely certain it would happen.

"Those things that hurt instruct!"

all reasonable men adapt themselves to the world. Only a few unreasonable ones persist in trying to adapt the world to themselves. All progress in the world depends on these unreasonable men and their innovative and often non-conformist actions.

For all your days prepare And meet them ever alike When you are the anvil, bear - When you are the hammer, strike.

Beautiful hands are those that do Work that is earnest and brave and true Moment by moment The long day through.

Don't worry and fret, fainthearted, The chances have just begun, For the best jobs haven't been started, The best work hasn't been done.

If you want to leave your footprints On the sands of time Do not drag your feet.

Knowledge cannot be taken away from anyone except by obsolescence.

"When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again".

Performance dimensions are factors that lead to creation. They go beyond competencies such as the skills and knowledge of the individual. Performance dimensions are broader and deeper than what a person must know and be able to do in order to function well in his or her job. They include attitudes, values and character traits. They exist at various levels of the human personality. At the behavioural level—at the outermost ring of the tree—we can observe skills and measure knowledge. Social roles and self-image dimensions are found at the intermediate level. Motives and traits exist at the innermost or core level. If we can identify those performance dimensions which are most highly correlated with job success, we can put them together to form a blueprint for outstanding performance in both thought and action.

we don't just build on successes, we also build on failures."

"Total commitment is not just hard work, it is total involvement.

Let craft, ambition, spite, Be quenched in Reason's night, Till weakness turn to might, Till what is dark be light, Till what is wrong be right!

"The sweetness we taste in a piece of sugar is neither a property of the sugar nor a property of ourselves. We are producing the experience of sweetness in the process of interacting with the sugar."

the four basic factors that I am convinced are involved in successful outcomes: goal-setting, positive thinking, visualizing, and believing.

'As a child of God, I am greater than anything that can happen to me'.

We create and destroy And again recreate Informs of which no one knows.

"Above all things, reverence yourself."