The quote database

On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been.

Unable to perceive a single chance of regaining their equality, they give up to despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of human nature.

At first sight there is something surprising in this strange unrest of so many happy men, restless in the midst of abundance.

Life is a stern business in any case: why pretend that it is anything else?

If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.

There is no royal road to the control of the brain.

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.

I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it

While my care was employ'd in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason.

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.

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

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

The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is.

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.

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

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.

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

The Government can not successfully insure prosperity or fix prices by legislative fiat.

Competence to age is supplementary youth; a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had.

Expect no healthy conclusions from me this month, reader; I can offer you only sick men's dreams.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

Resolve to remain as strong, as determined and as highly enthused during the darkest night of adversity as you are during the sunniest day of prosperity.

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

Our attempts should be not to extinguish nature, but to repress it; not to stand unmoved at distress, but endeavour to turn every disaster to our own advantage. Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

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