“The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.”

“What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve.”

“Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.”

“To hope does not mean to know the future, but rather to be open, in an attitude of spiritual childhood, to accepting it as a gift.”

“If God has bestowed on us any excellent gift, we imagine it to be our own achievement; and we swell and even burst with pride.”

“Individuality is a cultural achievement rather than a gift of nature. During the 19th century it was rather common for people to believe they were expressing their individuality by being "natural."”

“Any complex activity, if it is to be carried on with any degree of virtuosity, calls for appropriate gifts of intellect and temperament. If they are outstanding and reveal themselves in exceptional achievements, their possessor is called a 'genius.”

“Although there are those among us now who have been granted the gift of being able to glimpse patterns of the future, probabilities tossed like dice on the uneven blanket of space and time, even these gifted ones know that no single future has been preordained for us or our posterity. Events are fluid. The future is like smoke from a burning forest, waiting for the wind of specific events and personal courage to blow the sparks and embers of reality this way or that.”

“The first truth you must accept for Future Proofing You is that nothing can be achieved without a growth mindset.”

“At the age of eight, my dream was to become a world champion; and now I've achieved that title. I've achieved it not only for myself, but achieved it for the British people and also the Pakistani community - and all the Muslims in the country. It's a great feeling, a dream come true for me and Insha'Allah in the future, I want to achieve more things like this.”