All quotes

Sometimes we fail to hear or heed these voices of freedom because to us the privilege of our freedom is such an old, old story.

To reform one's maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life.

Man is a thought-being, and his life and character are determined by the thoughts in which he habitually dwells.

If errors have been committed they ought to be corrected; if the policy is sound it ought to be supported.

Between subjection to the will of others and the virtues of self-help and self-government there is a natural incompatibility.

I don’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.

You are good when you strive to give of yourself.

Pride in one's work is aroused as soon as work is functionalized. The moment a man has something to do that he likes to do, and can do well, he takes pride in it.

In rest you go beyond these limits, and beyond what is enough; but in action you do not fill the measure, and remain well within your powers.

Make trial how the life of a good man succeeds with you, the life of one who is content with the lot appointed him by Providence

I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves

The athlete trains for his race; and the mind must be put into training if one will win life's race.

He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes that seek for self-gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus can he realise his higher self.

It is for our self to know that it must be born anew every moment of its life.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide

Above all, he must guard and you must guard him against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. I had to force myself into being strenuous as you know--had always an inclination to be idle.

Nothing can be more certain than that the character can only be sustained and strengthened by its own energetic action.

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

Desire is a manifestation of power.

Every person naturally wants to become all that he is capable of becoming; this desire to realize innate possibilities is inherent in human nature; we cannot help wanting to be all that we can be.

Success in life is becoming what you want to be.

The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

But a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body.

One's beliefs have long been thought to be sanctuaries which government could not invade.