The quote database

What pulled Scott through was character, sheer good grain, which ran over and under and through his weaker self and clamped it together.

More than once in my short life I have been struck by the value of the man who is blind to what appears to be a common-sense certainty: he achieves the impossible.

If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions; if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin.

It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed

I will not say that I became discouraged, for as I now look back over my life I do not recall that I ever became discouraged over anything that I set out to accomplish.

out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth

My experience is that there is something in human nature which always makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter under what colour of skin merit is found.

I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.

Make up your minds that you are going to overcome every discouragement, and that you are not going to let any discouragement overcome you.

Little by little, very slowly, and with most unjust and cruel opposition, at cost of all life holds most dear, it is being gradually established by many martyrdoms that human work is woman’s as well as man’s.

The man who never weakens when things are against him will grow stronger and stronger until all things will delight to be for him.

And when you fall throughout life—and maybe even tonight after a few too many glasses of champagne—fall forward.

The point is, every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed. But do you have guts to fail?

I walked out of there to prepare for the next audition, and the next audition, and the next one.

Never be discouraged. Never hold back. Give everything you’ve got.

The history of human growth and development is at the same time the history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the approach of a brighter dawn.

Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man.

Bring now, O Zeus, any difficulty that thou pleasest, for I have means given to me by thee and powers for honoring myself through the things which happen.

In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist.

The task of keeping the galley fire alight was both difficult and strenuous, and it took his thoughts away from the chances of immediate dissolution.

A man must shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground.

The task now was to secure the safety of the party, and to that I must bend my energies and mental power and apply every bit of knowledge that experience of the Antarctic had given me.

The outlook was cheerless indeed, but much work had to be done and we could not yield to the desire to remain in the sleeping-bags.