The quote database

Patience lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers.

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

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.

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.

Other decent men are so alienated by such conduct that in their turn they abandon all effort to fight for reform, believing reformers to be either hypocrites or fools.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better

If a man stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us needs a helping hand now and then.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming

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.

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won't work.

Alas, we have known Times call loudly enough for their great man; but not find him when they called!

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.

When I hear some of my young friends complain of want of sympathy and encouragement, I am inclined to think that my naval life was not the least valuable part of my education.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.

Now dost thou resolve to avoid a fault, and within an hour thou behavest thyself as if thou hadst never resolved at all.

Little by little, through patience and long-suffering, thou shalt conquer by the help of God, rather than by violence and thine own strength of will.

One temptation or sorrow passeth, and another cometh; and always we shall have somewhat to suffer

Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek,--the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire.

Struggle, work, fight as I would, I seemed to get nowhere and accomplish nothing.

There is no short cut to the making of these ideals into glad realities.

Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little.

A regret for the mistakes of yesterday must not, however, blind us to the tasks of today.

Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie. It’s just the way life is sometimes.

Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often.

If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope.