'I resolve to eat less food' sounds good in theory, but it's often hard to sustain. And if you believe that it's all willpower, then you're likely to be upset with yourself if you don't succeed.

I really believe that the more informed you are about the benefits of a healthy bite versus the chain reaction that you're going to put into effect in your body when you take that bite - you just suddenly don't want to make that choice for yourself anymore. It's beyond willpower at that point; it's become a desire to do something good for yourself.

You have to believe in a placebo or it won't work, but if it works, it's obviously working in some indirect way, through feedback in the immune system, let us say, or in the willpower of the patient to take a more strenuous exercise in their own therapy.

What I know is that if you're going to play half-court, you'd better have the greatest executioners of half-court basketball. If you run, you test the stamina and willpower of the other team. That's what I learned as a player.

We want to design interventions to teach people how to harness their considerable willpower.

Excess exercise tends to be counterbalanced by excess hunger, exemplified by the phrase 'working up an appetite.' A few people with extraordinary willpower can resist such hunger day after day, but for the vast majority, weight loss through exercise is a flawed option.

We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then - and this is the best part - we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, we're free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower.

Successful weight loss takes programming, not willpower.

I think that what London wants are people with ideas and the willpower to get things through.

We are being conditioned, as a population, to never wait, to never delay our gratification, to accept thoughtless, constant consumption as the new norm. But how we think about consumption and willpower carry enormous implications for the environment and the culture of society as a whole.

I think in order to accomplish anything in life, you have to visualize yourself there - accepting the award, hearing your song on the radio, whatever it is - or you lose the willpower and the drive.

I once wrote a book on courage and what made people courageous. I found it was a strength of belief matched by a strength of willpower.

You give anybody a billion dollars, and of course they are passionate. Passion is one of those things like willpower in that there's 'magical thinking' about it. You've got to be careful about 'magical thinking.'

It's not just a matter of poor willpower on the part of the consumer and a give-the-people-what-they-want attitude on the part of the food manufacturers. What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort... to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.

Next to courage, willpower is the most important thing in politics.

We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely... change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.

When people have a willpower failure, it's because they haven't anticipated a situation that's going to come along.

There is a huge difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up. True success comes from failing repeatedly and as quickly as possible, before your cash or your willpower runs out.

I have willpower and determination. I am very resilient, like rock.

Having a superpower has nothing to do with the ability to fly or jump, or superhuman strength. The truest superpowers are the ones we all possess: willpower, integrity, and most importantly, courage.