The quote database

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.

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.

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

Labour is not only a necessity and a duty, but a blessing: only the idler feels it to be a curse.

What is done in business must be well done; for it is better to accomplish perfectly a small amount of work, than to half-do ten times as much.

Work educates the body, as study educates the mind; and that is the best state of society in which there is some work for every man's leisure, and some leisure for every man's work.

Such biographies increase a man's self-reliance by demonstrating what men can be, and what they can do; fortifying his hopes and elevating his aims in life.

A man's life is to be measured by what he does in it, and what he feels in it.

Life must needs be disgusting alike to the idle rich man as to the idle poor man, who has no work to do, or, having work, will not do it.

Work is the law of our being--the living principle that carries men and nations onward.

Every man's first duty is, to improve, to educate, and elevate himself--helping forward his brethren at the same time by all reasonable methods.

There is a dignity in the very effort to save with a worthy purpose, even though the attempt should not be crowned with eventual success.

The goal of mankind is knowledge. That is the one ideal placed before us by Eastern philosophy.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

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.

our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn

Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us.

success--the real success--does not depend upon the position you hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position

Let us strive hardily for success even if by so doing we risk failure, spurning the poorer souls of small endeavor who know neither failure nor success.

Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.

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.

If to-day thou art not ready, how shalt thou be ready to-morrow?

There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.

If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it can take care of itself.