Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
-- Mark Twain

Simply being different isn't wrong. Don't try to be a duckling if you're born to be a swan.
-- (unknown)

Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.
- - Thomas H. Huxley