1
The brain can be trained, as the hand and eye can be trained; it can be made as obedient as a sporting dog, and by similar methods.
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2
I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
Attribution contested
Circulated everywhere as if you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else, which appears in none of Washington's books, addresses or letters. This is the sentence in Up from Slavery it compresses. The paraphrase is not unfair, but it is not a quotation, and it drops the second half -- the claim that oppressing the unfortunate makes the oppressor weak -- which is the part he was actually arguing.
3
Very many people, very many students, who otherwise would succeed, who would go through school creditably, graduating with honours, have failed to succeed because they became discouraged.
4
I want you to make up your minds that you are going to be more nearly perfect, are going to put more manly and womanly strength into the preparation of your lessons each day, that you may be more useful.
5
If we would be great, and good, and useful, we must pay the price. And remember that when we get down to the fundamental principles of truth, nature draws no colour line.
6
Our ability to make the world better depends entirely upon our ability to use every opportunity to make ourselves better.
7
The more you are and the more you do, the richer your life, the greater your joy.
8
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
9
You hang around a barbershop long enough—sooner or later you will get a haircut.
10
Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.
11
If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.
12
Yet is it far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.
Eleanor Rooseveltmisattributed·The Invincible Strategy, in The Supreme Conquest and Other Sermons Preached in America, by W. L. Watkinson·1907
Wrongly attributed
Adlai Stevenson used a version of this in his eulogy for Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962, and it has been hers ever since; it is also sold as Confucius and as an old Chinese proverb. It is neither. It is W. L. Watkinson, the English Methodist preacher, in a sermon called The Invincible Strategy, printed in 1907 -- and he presents it as a saying already in circulation rather than as his own coinage. What is certain is that this is the earliest printed appearance anybody has produced, and it predates Roosevelt's public life.
13
I am by Nature made for my own good; not for my own evil.
14
When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful.
15
The demons of depression could find no foothold when he was around
16
The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make.
17
Nothing stands between man and his highest ideals and every desire of his heart, but doubt and fear.
18
The vision and action must go hand in hand.
19
Man can only receive what he sees himself receiving.
20
I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.
21
the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart
Attribution contested
The words are Keller's, but two things in the popular version are not. The wording is smoothed -- it usually appears as they must be felt with the heart -- and, more importantly, Keller does not present the thought as her own: she writes that her teacher explained it to her. On her own account the sentence belongs at least as much to Anne Sullivan.
22
Life is a fair field, and the right will prosper if we stand by our guns.
23
Each halt in his progress has been but a pause before a mighty leap forward.
24
Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house builded on sand.
25
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.