The quote database

At first sight there is something surprising in this strange unrest of so many happy men, restless in the midst of abundance.

If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.

The time for renewed action was coming, and though our situation was grave enough, we were facing the future hopefully.

My share in the work of the world may be limited; but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as it were redeemed.

There is no short road to the realization of these aspirations.

She is besotted with innocent little ambitions, and does not understand this apparent waste of herself, this elaborate preparation, if no work is provided for her.

Young people themselves often resent this attitude on the part of their elders; they feel set aside and belittled as if they were denied the common human experiences.

Such a young person persistently believes that behind all suffering, behind sin and want, must lie redeeming magnanimity.

I seemed to have nothing left to live for.

If happiness is what you’re after, then you are going to be let down frequently and be unhappy much of your time.

I know that peace does not come through wishing for it--that there is no substitute for days and even years of patient and prolonged diplomacy.

Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.

All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it.

Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun.

To ask to see some fruit of our endeavour is but a transcendental way of serving for reward; and what we take to be contempt of self is only greed of hire.

It may consist with perpetual failure, and find exercise in the continued chase.

The time of such a man is always spent in forming schemes, which a change of wind hinders him from executing, his powers fume away in projects and in hope, and the day of action never arrives.

Such biographies increase a man's self-reliance by demonstrating what men can be, and what they can do; fortifying his hopes and elevating his aims in life.

Failure in any good cause is, however, honourable, whilst success in any bad cause is merely infamous.

There is a dignity in the very effort to save with a worthy purpose, even though the attempt should not be crowned with eventual success.

A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.

Let us strive hardily for success even if by so doing we risk failure, spurning the poorer souls of small endeavor who know neither failure nor success.

Life seems terribly foreshortened as they look back and the mountain they set themselves to climb in youth turns out to be a mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges when, by failing breath, they reach the top.

Struggle, work, fight as I would, I seemed to get nowhere and accomplish nothing.