Motivational quotes

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity. Pride is the burden of a foolish person.

From Rigsby's viral commencement address, in a lesson about keeping a servant's towel bigger than one's ego.

Every man's first duty is, to improve, to educate, and elevate himself--helping forward his brethren at the same time by all reasonable methods.

Industry enables men to earn their living; it should also enable them to learn to live.

There are a thousand other instances in which application has conquered all obstacles, and proved that nothing which the mind has set itself to endure is difficult.

Great men, I say, often rejoice at crosses of fortune just as brave soldiers do at wars.

We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.

In explaining karma as action that forms character, Vivekananda turns responsibility for past action into confidence about present agency.

Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character.

Published in the Outlook while he was Governor of New York, after a Yale professor told him it is character that counts in football and in study alike.

Perhaps there is no more important component of character than steadfast resolution.

The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.

Addressed to the men of lettered leisure in the Sorbonne audience, immediately before the arena passage.

The great crisis must come, or no man has the chance to develop great qualities.

His answer to why the element of chance in any large success cannot be argued away: if there is not the war, you do not get the great general.

success--the real success--does not depend upon the position you hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position

The closing thought of the speech, from a man who had just stopped being President.

In this life we get nothing save by effort.