The quote database

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

Difficult and embarrassing questions meet us at the threshold of this subject.

Human judgment is never unerring, and is rarely regarded as otherwise than wrong by the unsuccessful party in the contest.

Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings, because they are his own.

Many friendships are formed by a community of sensual pleasures: all these will be cut off.

To disappoint a friend is unpleasing; and he that forms expectations like yours, must be disappointed.

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.

Energy of temperament, with a moderate degree of wisdom, will carry a man further than any amount of intellect without it.

A man must have the courage to be himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another.

Courage may be displayed in everyday life as well as in historic fields of action.

Thrift does not require superior courage, nor superior intellect, nor any superhuman virtue.

Self-respect, originating in self-love, instigates the first step of improvement.

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

There is little place in active life for the timid good man.

almost any man can do a great deal, if he will, by getting the utmost possible service out of the qualities that he actually possesses

When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.

I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make

Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.

Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.

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

If I felt that there is to be sole responsibility in the Executive for the America of tomorrow I should shrink from the burden.

SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education and not your social status.

The power of one person — Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala — one person can change the world by giving people hope.

If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers.