The quote database

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

It is not down in any map; true places never are

It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.

To grow in self-control, in patience, in equanimity, is to grow in strength and power; and you can only thus grow by focusing your consciousness upon a principle.

National honor is national property of the highest value.

Our young people feel nervously the need of putting theory into action, and respond quickly to the Settlement form of activity.

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.

Huxley declares that the sense of uselessness is the severest shock which the human system can sustain, and that if persistently sustained, it results in atrophy of function.

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

These young people have had advantages of college, of European travel, and of economic study, but they are sustaining this shock of inaction.

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.

We will lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

I will give my all in your service thinking not of power, but of possibilities.

ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country

Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned you, that the happiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank in earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now.

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way

One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end.

I seemed to have nothing left to live for.

The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means?

At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.

There was a Care on my Mind so to pass my Time, that nothing might hinder me from the most steady Attention to the Voice of the true Shepherd.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.