176
Self-respect, originating in self-love, instigates the first step of improvement.
The complete collection
The quote database
Every quote we hold, 1549 of them from 213 people across 387 works. Filter it, sort it, and follow any citation back to the source.
1529 checked at source
Filter the collection
Category
Feeling
Attribution
177
Thrift does not require superior courage, nor superior intellect, nor any superhuman virtue.
178
Every man's first duty is, to improve, to educate, and elevate himself--helping forward his brethren at the same time by all reasonable methods.
179
For the mind requires not like an earthen vessel to be filled up; convenient fuel and aliment only will inflame it with a desire of knowledge and ardent love of truth.
Socratesmisattributed·Of Hearing, in Plutarch's Morals, Volume 1 (corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin)·1878
Wrongly attributed
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel is printed on university walls under Socrates's name. Socrates wrote nothing at all, and the sentence is not in Plato either. It is Plutarch, four hundred years later, in the Moralia essay usually called On Listening to Lectures -- and it is not an aphorism about education but a rebuke to a student who sits and admires the lecturer instead of thinking. Note what the tidy modern version loses: Plutarch does not say the mind is a flame to be kindled, he says it is not a pot, and that what it wants is fuel.
180
We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.
181
In this life we get nothing save by effort.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Strenuous Life, an address before the Hamilton Club, Chicago·April 10, 1899
182
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Strenuous Life, an address before the Hamilton Club, Chicago·April 10, 1899
183
Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character.
184
Perhaps there is no more important component of character than steadfast resolution.
185
There is little place in active life for the timid good man.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·Citizenship in a Republic, in African and European Addresses·April 23, 1910
186
The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·Citizenship in a Republic, in African and European Addresses·April 23, 1910
187
If a man stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us needs a helping hand now and then.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·Citizenship in a Republic, in African and European Addresses·April 23, 1910
188
The great crisis must come, or no man has the chance to develop great qualities.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Conditions of Success, an address at the Cambridge Union·May 26, 1910
189
success--the real success--does not depend upon the position you hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Conditions of Success, an address at the Cambridge Union·May 26, 1910
190
almost any man can do a great deal, if he will, by getting the utmost possible service out of the qualities that he actually possesses
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Conditions of Success, an address at the Cambridge Union·May 26, 1910
191
There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Wrongly attributed
Roosevelt did not coin this. He quotes it in his Autobiography and names its author: Squire Bill Widener of Widener's Valley, Virginia, a neighbour with no other claim on posterity. It is now printed on posters and mugs as Roosevelt's own, usually shortened to Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. The sentence around it is the evidence that it was never his.
192
Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won't work.
Thomas A. Edisondisputed·Edison: His Life and Inventions, by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin·1910
Attribution contested
The famous form -- I have not failed, I have just found ten thousand ways that won't work -- has no source in Edison. The earliest record of the remark is this one, in the authorised 1910 biography, and it is a colleague's recollection of a conversation, not Edison writing. Note what changes in the retelling: several thousand becomes ten thousand, and a man cheerfully counting negative results becomes a man defending himself against failure.
193
Genius is 1 per cent. inspiration and 99 per cent. perspiration.
194
The good plan itself, this comes not of its own accord; it is the fruit of “genius” (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all)
Attribution contested
Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains is one of the most quoted sentences in English and Carlyle did not write it. This is what he wrote, and the differences are real: transcendent, not infinite; trouble, not pains; and first of all, which concedes that taking trouble is only where genius starts. The familiar wording appears later in the century in other hands and is usually traced to Jane Ellice Hopkins in 1870. Carlyle got the credit because he got there first with the thought.
195
If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it can take care of itself.
Viktor E. Franklmisattributed·The Twilight of the Idols, by Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Anthony M. Ludovici)·1911
Wrongly attributed
Usually quoted as Frankl's own: he who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Frankl never claimed it. He quotes Nietzsche in Man's Search for Meaning, and the line is Nietzsche's, from Twilight of the Idols in 1888. The familiar English wording matches no published translation of the period; Ludovici's 1911 rendering is the one above.
196
The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.
197
Success in life is becoming what you want to be.
198
Desire is a manifestation of power.
199
Do, every day, all that you can do that day, and do each act in an efficient manner.
200
Every person naturally wants to become all that he is capable of becoming; this desire to realize innate possibilities is inherent in human nature; we cannot help wanting to be all that we can be.