The Times Great Quotations: Famous quotes to inform, motivate and inspire

ASPIRATION AND OPPORTUNITY

Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter.

Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, admiral of the Royal Navy (1748–1810)

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We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

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Come, my friends. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Ulysses (1833)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809–1892)

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One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.

Les faux-monnayeurs (1925)

André Gide, French writer (1869–1951)

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A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer (1900–1944)

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Nurture your minds with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister of the UK (1804–1881)

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We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.

Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister of the UK (1804–1881)

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There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go — if there are no doors or windows — he walks through a wall.

Rembrandt’s Hat (1972)

Bernard Malamud, American writer (1914–1986)

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By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.

Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer (1451–1506)

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In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.

Dalai Lama, Tibetan monk of the Gelug school (1935–)

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Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

Against Leptines (c. 385/4 BC)

Demosthenes, Greek orator and Athenian statesman (c. 384–322 BC)

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Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher and statesman (1729–1797)

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I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

Edward Everett Hale, American writer (1822–1909)

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What we’re saying today is that you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.

[Speech in San Francisco, 1968]

Eldridge Cleaver, American political activist (1935–1998)

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I am here to live out loud.

Émile Zola, French writer (1840–1902)

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Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

Man for Himself (1947)

Erich Fromm, German philosopher and psychologist (1900–1980)

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You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

Methuselah (1903)

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

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It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.

George Eliot, English writer (1819–1880)

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What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

Middlemarch (1871–72)

George Eliot, English writer (1819–1880)

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Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Let Us Have Faith (1940)

Helen Keller, American writer and social reformer (1880–1968)

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It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

Herman Melville, American writer (1819–1891)

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Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.

Hippocrates, Greek physician (460–370 BC)

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He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.

Epistles (20 BC)

Horace, Roman poet (65–8 BC)

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You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.

John Bunyan, English writer (1628–1688)

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All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

[Inaugural address, 1961]

John F Kennedy, 35th president of the US (1917–1963)

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What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Langston Hughes, American poet (1902–1967)

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The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher (?–533 BC)

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Great fires erupt from tiny sparks.

Libyan proverb

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (1901–1978)

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We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

Marie Curie, French-Polish physicist and chemist (1867–1934)

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What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?

Frankenstein (1823)

Mary Shelley, English writer (1797–1851)

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Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: I’m with you kid. Let’s go.

Maya Angelou, American writer (1928–2014)

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Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish.

Ovid, Roman poet (43 BC–AD 18)

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I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter (1881–1973)

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Always do what you are afraid to do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (1803–1882)

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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Circles (1841)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (1803–1882)

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Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

Richard Bach, American writer (1936–)

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The scouts’ motto is founded on my initials, it is Be Prepared, which means, you are always to be in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.

Scouting for Boys (1908)

Robert Baden-Powell, British Army officer (1857–1941)

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Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?

Andrea del Sarto (1855)

Robert Browning, English poet (1812–1889)

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To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (1850–1894)

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At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

Salvador Dalí, Spanish surrealist painter (1904–1989)

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Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

Samuel Johnson, English writer, critic and lexicographer (1709–1784)

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If you are not criticised, you may not be doing much.

Human Life (1819)

Samuel Rogers, English poet (1763–1855)

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To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them.

Simone de Beauvoir, French writer (1908–1986)

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One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.

Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish physician (1881–1955)

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Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it.

Sir Henry Royce, English engineer (1863–1933)

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Either I will find a way, or I will make one.

Sir Philip Sidney, English poet (1554–1586)

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Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

Sun Tzu, Chinese strategist (545–470 BC)

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Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

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I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

[Speech in Chicago, 1899]

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

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Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

[The Strenuous Life speech, 1899]

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

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As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.

[Commencement speech at Sarah Lawrence College, 1988]

Toni Morrison, American writer (1931–)

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What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

[Letter to his brother Theo, 1881]

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853–1890)

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The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

[Interview with The Paris Review, 1956]

William Faulkner, American writer (1897–1962)

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You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.

The Mansion (1959)

William Faulkner, American writer (1897–1962)

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Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

Troilus and Cressida (1602)

William Shakespeare, English poet and dramatist (1564–1616)

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I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail.

[Campaign speech at New York State Fair Grounds, Syracuse, 1912]

Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the US (1856–1924)

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

[Attr.]

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

BELIEFS AND DOUBT

It is often said that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The universe, however, is a free lunch.

Harper’s Magazine (1994)

Alan Guth, American theoretical physicist (1947–)

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Zen … does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

The Way of Zen (1957)

Alan Watts, British teacher and writer (1915–1973)

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My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right!

[Speech to the US Senate, 1872)

Carl Schurz, German revolutionary and American statesman (1829–1906)

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Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live for it.

Lacon (1820)

Charles Caleb Colton, English cleric (1780–1832)

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Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

Douglas Adams, English humourist and dramatist (1952–2001)

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Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.

The Enchiridion of Epictetus (c. 125)

Epictetus, Greek philosopher (50–135)

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At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Bernice Bobs her Hair (1920)

F Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (1896–1940)

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All good moral philosophy is but a handmaid to religion.

The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman and essayist (1561–1626)

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So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.

The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian writer (1821–1881)

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If the Devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own likeness.

The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian writer (1821–1881)

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There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898)

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

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Religions are kept alive by heresies, which are really sudden explosions of faith. Dead religions do not produce them.

Thoughts in a Dry Season (1978)

Gerald Brenan, British writer (1894–1987)

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If God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985)

Jeanette Winterson, English writer (1959–)

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Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

John Locke, English philosopher (1632–1704)

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God and the doctor we alike adore

But only when in danger, not before;

The danger o’er, both are alike requited,

God is forgotten and the doctor slighted.

Epigrams (1677)

John Owen, Welsh epigrammist (1564–1622)

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Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.

The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958)

Laurens van der Post, South African writer and political adviser (1906–1996)

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I see it as an elderly lady, who mutters away to herself in a corner, ignored most of the time.

[In Reader’s Digest, 1991, about the Church of England]

Lord Carey of Clifton, Archbishop of Canterbury (1935–)

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To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

The Bible

Luke 1:79

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Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozens.

Essais (1580)

Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher (1533–1592)

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He who gains an indulgence is not, strictly speaking, absolved from the debt of punishment, but is given the means whereby he may pay it.

Summa Theologica (1485)

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Italian Catholic priest (1225–1274)

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If the sun and moon should doubt, they’d immediately go out.

Auguries of Innocence (1863)

William Blake, English poet (1757–1827)

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Both read the Bible day and night,

But thou read’st black where I read white.

The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)

William Blake, English poet (1757–1827)

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It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion.

William Temple, British theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury (1881–1944)

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I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

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Even God is deprived of this one thing only: the power to undo what has been done.

Agathon, Greek poet (448–400 BC)

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God does not play dice.

The Born-Einstein Letters (1926)

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

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I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

The Color Purple (1985)

Alice Walker, American writer and activist (1944–)

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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The Bible

Genesis 1:2

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God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.

The Ghost in the Machine (1967)

Arthur Koestler, Hungarian-British writer (1905–1983)

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My dear child, you must believe in God in spite of what the clergy tell you.

Benjamin Jowett, English educator and theologian (1817–1893)

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I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flick of His finger; after that he had no more use for God.

Pensées (1670)

Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and physicist (1623–1662)

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In all important questions, man has learned to cope without recourse to God as a working hypothesis.

[Letter to a friend, 1944]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (1906–1945)

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By Night an Atheist half believes a God.

Night-Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality (1742–1745)

Edward Young, English poet (1683–1765)

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God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in’t.

Aurora Leigh (1857)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (1806–1861)

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So many gods, so many creeds,

So many paths that wind and wind,

While just the art of being kind

Is all the sad world needs.

The World’s Need (1917)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American writer and poet (1850–1919)

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God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Empedocles, Greek philosopher (495–444 BC)

CHALLENGE AND TENACITY

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

The Transcendent Function (1916)

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875–1961)

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No easy problems ever come to the president of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them.

Parade Magazine (1962)

Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th president of the US (1890–1969)

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Never stop because you are afraid — you are never so likely to be wrong. Never keep a line of retreat; it is a wretched invention. The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.

Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian polar explorer (1861–1930)

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Security is when everything is settled, when nothing can happen to you; security is the denial of life.

The Female Eunuch (1970)

Germaine Greer, Australian writer and intellectual (1939–)

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Oft in danger, oft in woe,

Onward, Christians, onward go;

Bear the toil, maintain the strife,

Strengthened with the Bread of Life.

Oft in danger, oft in woe (1812)

H Kirke White, English poet (1785–1806)

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Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

Old Town Folks (1869)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, American abolitionist and writer (1811–1896)

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The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence but by oft falling.

[Seventh Sermon before Edward VI, 1549]

Hugh Latimer, English Protestant martyr (1487–1555)

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It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

John Steinbeck, American writer (1902–1968)

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Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it.

Typhoon (1902)

Joseph Conrad, Polish-British writer (1857–1924)

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Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

Meditations (before 850)

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (161–180)

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Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?

Marian Wright Edelman, American children’s rights activist (1939–)

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I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Mark Twain, American writer (1835–1910)

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You may not control all the events that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Letter to My Daughter (2008)

Maya Angelou, American writer (1928–2014)

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There is no effort without error or shortcoming.

[“Citizenship in a Republic” speech, 1910]

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

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Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

Moral Epistles (c. 65)

Seneca the Younger, Roman philosopher and poet (4 BC–AD 65)

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Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

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If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you.

De Imitatione Christi (c. 1418–1427)