The quote database

Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which will tell you the real character of a great man.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past.

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.

In this life we get nothing save by effort.

Other decent men are so alienated by such conduct that in their turn they abandon all effort to fight for reform, believing reformers to be either hypocrites or fools.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming

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.

Genius is 1 per cent. inspiration and 99 per cent. perspiration.

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)

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.

When I hear some of my young friends complain of want of sympathy and encouragement, I am inclined to think that my naval life was not the least valuable part of my education.

I have been obliged to content myself through life with saying what I mean in the plainest of plain language, than which, I suppose, there is no habit more ruinous to a man's prospects of advancement.

If we would put some slight stress on ourselves at the beginning, then afterwards we should be able to do all things with ease and joy.

If thou bear it unwillingly, thou makest a burden for thyself and greatly increaseth thy load, and yet thou must bear it.

Rather be an hour early than a minute late.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

I am now sending back to Belle Plain all my wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition, and purpose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.

It is men who wait to be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we may always expect the most efficient service.

One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go any where, or to do anything, not to turn back, or stop until the thing intended was accomplished.

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

The Day of Miracles was past, and a long, gray road of dogged work lay ahead.

The world is advanced only by those who more than fill their present places.

You are to become a creator, not a competitor.