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.
The superior man is he who develops, in harmonious proportions, his moral, intellectual and physical nature. This should be the end at which men of all classes should aim, and it is this only which constitutes real greatness.
~ Douglas Jerrold
slip:4a156.
Life is not always a matter of holding good cards,
~ Jack London
but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
slip:4a62.
It is not necessary for a man to be actively bad in order to make a failure in life; simple inaction will accomplish it. Nature has everywhere written her protest against idleness; that which remains inactive, rapidly deteriorates. It is the struggle toward an ideal, the constant effort to get higher and further, which develops manhood and character.
~ James Terry White
slip:4a158.
Fitness is not about being better than someone else,
~ unknown
it’s about being better than you used to be.
slip:4a281.
Without an adversary, virtus shrivels. We see how great and how viable virtus is when, by endurance, it shows what it is capable of.
~ Seneca
slip:4a13.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
~ Robert Heinlein
slip:4a25.
A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.
~ Marcus Aurelius
slip:4a157.