All quotes

The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who is braced to effort neither in the office nor out of it

The beginning of wise living lies in the control of the brain by the will; so that the brain may act according to the precepts which the brain itself gives.

The brain can be disciplined by learning the habit of obedience.

To have no regular work, no set sphere of activity--what a miserable thing it is!

He who observes the wind won’t sow; and he who regards the clouds won’t reap.

In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening don’t withhold your hand; for you don’t know which will prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both will be equally good.

Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult.

Therefore we ought to exercise ourselves in small things, and beginning with them to proceed to the greater.

To love, to dream, to feel, to learn, to understand--all these are possible to me if only I may be relieved from willing.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation

Do not then vainly imagine that you can obtain the heavenly possessions without making an effort.

Idleness and a strong will cannot go together, and procrastination is a total barrier to the acquisition of purposeful action.

Huxley declares that the sense of uselessness is the severest shock which the human system can sustain, and that if persistently sustained, it results in atrophy of function.

She is besotted with innocent little ambitions, and does not understand this apparent waste of herself, this elaborate preparation, if no work is provided for her.

Young people themselves often resent this attitude on the part of their elders; they feel set aside and belittled as if they were denied the common human experiences.

The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means?

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

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.

Is pleasure, then, the object of your being, and not action, and the exercise of your powers?

No man can hinder the proper work of the mind.

the mind can convert and change everything that impedes its activity into matter for its action; hindrance in its work becomes its real help, and every obstruction makes for its progress

Now the end, I take it, is all one, to live at more leisure and at one's ease: but men do not always take the right way.

The ultimate effect of parasitism is always a paralysis of the will and an inability to compel oneself into any course of action for the moment unpleasurable and exhaustive.

A hopeless feeling descends on one and is hard to fight off.

The time of such a man is always spent in forming schemes, which a change of wind hinders him from executing, his powers fume away in projects and in hope, and the day of action never arrives.