The library
Uplifting words from sages, poets and naturalists. Every card opens its receipt: the exact source, the locator and how it was verified.
58 quotes · page 1 of 3
The effort or struggle to climb to a higher place in life has strength and dignity in it, and cannot fail to leave us stronger, even though we may never reach the position we desire, or secure the prize we seek.
Orison Swett Marden, Pushing to the Front
Do not bother as to whether yesterday's work was well done or ill done; do to-day's work well.
Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich
These three things, Will, Work, Success, fill human existence. Will opens the door to success both brilliant and happy; Work passes these doors, and at the end of the journey Success comes to crown one’s efforts.
Louis Pasteur, The Life of Pasteur
It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man.
Epictetus, Discourses
At first my resolutions faded like snow in April, but in a little while I conquered my weakness…
Nikola Tesla, My Inventions
I felt that my foot was upon the ladder and that I was bound to climb.
Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing…
Theodore Roosevelt, Address at the State Fair, Syracuse, N.Y.
Select the thing you want to be, and then grow steadily into it.
William Walker Atkinson, Nuggets of the New Thought
It is my earnest desire that some of you should carry on this scientific work and keep for your ambition the determination to make a permanent contribution to science.
Marie Curie, The Discovery of Radium
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series
Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.
Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
One to-day is worth two To-morrows…
Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.
Helen Keller, Optimism: An Essay
No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.
Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga (Yoga Philosophy: Lectures Delivered in New York, Winter of 1895–6)
There is for each man, perfect self-expression. There is a place which he is to fill and no one else can fill, something which he is to do, which no one else can do; it is his destiny!
Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Let no man think lightly of good, saying in his heart, It will not come nigh unto me. Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is filled; the wise man becomes full of good, even if he gather it little by little.
The Buddha, The Dhammapada
Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible.
Henry Ford, My Life and Work
…if you are to reach some further point it can only be by starting from where you are now.
Thomas Troward, The Doré Lectures
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. 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…
Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic
Do all you can for yourselves, and then trust to Providence, or luck, or whatever you please to call it, for the rest.
P. T. Barnum, Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum