The quote database

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best

The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not according to the work or the place.

All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for

The first and last lesson of the useful arts is, that Nature tyrannizes over our works.

To accomplish anything excellent, the will must work for catholic and universal ends.

The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.

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.

A hopeless feeling descends on one and is hard to fight off.

Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow.

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

One can only say 'God help us!' and plod on our weary way, cold and very miserable, though outwardly cheerful.

Above all, he must guard and you must guard him against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. I had to force myself into being strenuous as you know--had always an inclination to be idle.

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality

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.

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 never seems to them that they have served enough; they have a fine impatience of their virtues.

There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted.

They meant that public officers should owe their whole service to the Government and to the people.

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.

Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.

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

Patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers.

Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.

With perseverance, the very odds and ends of time may be worked up into results of the greatest value.

hope, which is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for whoso hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.