All quotes

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.

Doubt is of two natures, and we often confuse a wise suspension of judgment with the weakness of hesitation.

Moreover, the result in the long run will depend not so much on some single resolution, or on our action in a special case, but rather on the preparation of daily life.

Our duty is to make ourselves useful, and thus life may be most interesting, and yet comparatively free from anxiety.

The body ceases to grow in a few years; but the mind, if we will let it, may grow as long as life lasts.

You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernal, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart one day, and then the rough burr will fall off.

There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so interesting.

Well, I don’t want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life

I’m not a bit changed--not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me--back here--is just the same.

if you see that anything is within man's power, and part of his proper work, conclude that you also may attain to it

If you have no confidence in self you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started.

Give others and yourself more credit. It just happened, you witnessed it, you just did it, believe it.

We have created a fictitious ceiling, a roof, to our expectations of ourselves, a limit — where we think it’s all too good to be true.

No one will insist upon your rights while you yourself doubt that you have any.

No one can pursue a worthy object steadily and persistently with all the powers of his mind, and yet make his life a failure.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Self-respect, originating in self-love, instigates the first step of improvement.

Thrift does not require superior courage, nor superior intellect, nor any superhuman virtue.

There is little place in active life for the timid good man.

almost any man can do a great deal, if he will, by getting the utmost possible service out of the qualities that he actually possesses

But the true competition is the competition of the individual with himself,--his present seeking to excel his past.

If we seek ever to surpass ourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a harmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts.

Life is but a succession of opportunities. They are for good or evil,--as we make them.

Man can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass himself.

Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them.