A long long time ago I began collecting inspirational quotes and aphorisms which became my collection of quotes.
People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.
~ Elizabeth Gilbert
slip:4a145.
A man is one whose body has been trained to be the ready servant of his mind; Whose passions are trained to be the servants of his will; Who enjoys the beautiful, loves truth, hates wrong, loves to do good, and respects others as himself.
~ John Ruskin
slip:4a55.
At the end, when your legs are tired
~ unknown
and your arms are giving out,
GET ANGRY.
Get angry that you are tired.
THEN HIT IT HARDER.
slip:4a109.
There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is, “Where am I going?” and the second is, “Who will go with me?” If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.
~ Sam Keen
slip:4a187.
What is a man?
~ Paul Anka
What has he got?
If not himself,
then he has naught.
slip:4a110.
We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
slip:4a11.
I have perused your piece, and find it to be scurrilous and defamatory. To determine whether I should publish it or not, I went home in the evening, purchased a two penny loaf at the baker’s, and with water from the pump made my supper; I then wrapped myself up in my great coat, and laid down on the floor and slept till morning, when, on another loaf and a mug of water, I made my breakfast. From this regimen I feel no inconvenience whatever. Finding I can live in this manner, I have formed a determination never to prostitute my press to the purposes of corruption, and abuse of this kind, for the sake of gaining a more comfortable subsistence.
~ Benjamin Franklin
slip:4a872.
The lesson taught at this point by human experience is simply this, that the man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down. Personal independence is a virtue and it is the soul out of which comes the sturdiest manhood. But there can be no independence without a large share of self-dependence, and this virtue cannot be bestowed. It must be developed from within.
~ Frederick Douglass
slip:4a16.
I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on Earth. Then I ask myself the same question.
~ Harun Yahya
slip:4a99.
Who – only let him be a man and intent upon honor – is not eager for the honorable ordeal and prompt to assume perilous duties? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?
~ Seneca
slip:4a126.
If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want will be the sacrifice.
~ unknown
slip:4a142.
A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.
~ Winston Churchill
slip:4a270.
Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn’t yet been part of you graduates’ actual life routine, day after week after month after year.
But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in.
~ David Foster Wallace
slip:4a799.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
~ Calvin Coolidge
slip:4a352.
If boys don’t learn, men won’t know.
~ Douglas Wilson
slip:4a146.
You know what lies outside your comfort zone?
Opportunity.
~ unknown
slip:4a522.
We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
~ C.S. Lewis
slip:4a18.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
~ George Bernard Shaw
slip:4a39.
I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.
~ James A. Garfield
slip:4a141.
Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you.
~ unknown
slip:4a67.