The quote database

Self-love is mainly to blame, making people fond of being first and aspiring in all matters, and insatiably desirous to engage in everything.

The more man acts and makes actual what was latent in him, the nearer does he bring the distant Yet-to-be.

This joy of life, this joy of work, in man is absolutely true.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best

All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for

The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not according to the work or the place.

To accomplish anything excellent, the will must work for catholic and universal ends.

The first and last lesson of the useful arts is, that Nature tyrannizes over our works.

I know that peace does not come through wishing for it--that there is no substitute for days and even years of patient and prolonged diplomacy.

The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.

If you’re going to do a job, do it right.

I won't have a problem with you if you aim high and miss, but I will have a real problem if you aim low and hit.

A hopeless feeling descends on one and is hard to fight off.

Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow.

Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.

Above all, he must guard and you must guard him against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. I had to force myself into being strenuous as you know--had always an inclination to be idle.

One can only say 'God help us!' and plod on our weary way, cold and very miserable, though outwardly cheerful.

All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it.

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality

To ask to see some fruit of our endeavour is but a transcendental way of serving for reward; and what we take to be contempt of self is only greed of hire.

There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted.

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

They meant that public officers should owe their whole service to the Government and to the people.

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.

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.