We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who hope that their dreams will come true.
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)
Genius is eternal patience.
—Michelangelo (Italian Painter)
Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.
—Susan Sontag (American Writer, Philosopher)
Humility is often only a feigned submission, of which we make use to render others submissive. It is an artifice of pride which abases in order to exalt itself.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld
O Lord, you know what is best for me. Let this or that be done, as you please. Give what you will, how much you will, and when you will.
—Thomas A Kempis
You are at the top when you’ve made friends with the past, are focused on the present, and optimistic about your future. … .
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)
Even if a farmer intends to loaf, he gets up in time to get an early start.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)
A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (American Novelist)
No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)
When the joy of the job’s gone, when it’s no fun trying anymore, quit before you’re fired.
—Malcolm Forbes (American Publisher)
I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top.
—Frank Moore Colby (American Educator)