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I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed

I will not say that I became discouraged, for as I now look back over my life I do not recall that I ever became discouraged over anything that I set out to accomplish.

My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings.

A phase of my life was closing to-night, a new one opening to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.

My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong—that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them.

Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions remain unshaken.

The wisdom of our fathers, foreseeing even the most dire possibilities, made sure that the Government should never be imperiled because of the uncertainty of human life.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear; and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Resolve to remain as strong, as determined and as highly enthused during the darkest night of adversity as you are during the sunniest day of prosperity.

The man who never weakens when things are against him will grow stronger and stronger until all things will delight to be for him.

My dear Laelius and Scipio, we must stand up against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains.

Supposing, then, each separate misfortune to occasion a separate additional grief, the whole would be too great to be supportable.

Such friendship enhances prosperity, and relieves adversity of its burden by halving and sharing it.

And when you fall throughout life—and maybe even tonight after a few too many glasses of champagne—fall forward.

Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

I walked out of there to prepare for the next audition, and the next audition, and the next one.

Never be discouraged. Never hold back. Give everything you’ve got.

The point is, every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed. But do you have guts to fail?

You hang around a barbershop long enough—sooner or later you will get a haircut.

You will fail at some point in your life. Accept it. You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There is no doubt about it.

Baffled, discountenanced, subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will be only the dearer to me.

In our sorrow we see the rough side of the stuff; in our joys the smooth; and who shall say that when the taffeta is turned the most silk may not be in the sorrows?

Once I wished not to live, but the faculty of life seems to have sprung up in me again, from under the crushing foot of heavy grief.