The quote database

Life is a stern business in any case: why pretend that it is anything else?

If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions; if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin.

My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed

I will not say that I became discouraged, for as I now look back over my life I do not recall that I ever became discouraged over anything that I set out to accomplish.

The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is.

I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.

out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth

Make up your minds that you are going to overcome every discouragement, and that you are not going to let any discouragement overcome you.

The man who never weakens when things are against him will grow stronger and stronger until all things will delight to be for him.

Resolve to remain as strong, as determined and as highly enthused during the darkest night of adversity as you are during the sunniest day of prosperity.

You will fail at some point in your life. Accept it. You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There is no doubt about it.

Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

You hang around a barbershop long enough—sooner or later you will get a haircut.

I walked out of there to prepare for the next audition, and the next audition, and the next one.

Never be discouraged. Never hold back. Give everything you’ve got.

And when you fall throughout life—and maybe even tonight after a few too many glasses of champagne—fall forward.

Baffled, discountenanced, subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will be only the dearer to me.

If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault; for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations.

In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist.

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

To admit failure at this stage was hard, but the facts had to be faced.

One should always follow a denial with an affirmation.

Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights--then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward.

At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished.