Browse 9 quotations connecting William George Jordan with Self-Worth, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include The Power of Truth: Individual Problems and Possibilities, Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, The Majesty of Calmness. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include The Power of Truth: Individual Problems and Possibilities, Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, The Majesty of Calmness.
“It is what a man makes of himself that counts.”
Jordan places developed character and chosen conduct above passive labels or circumstances when judging what a person can become.
Source note: Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, “The Kingship of Self-Control.” Project Gutenberg #51469. The line belongs to late-nineteenth-century self-mastery literature and is not evidence that circumstance is irrelevant.
“Every individual is a marvel of unknown and unrealized possibilities.”
Jordan locates worth partly in capacities that have not yet been discovered or developed, resisting a final judgment based only on present performance.
Source note: Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, later discussion of individual possibility. The sentence is motivational rhetoric about human potential rather than a measurable universal prediction.
“Man is placed into this world not as a finality,—but as a possibility.”
A person is described as unfinished rather than fixed, leaving room for development in conduct, ability and character.
Source note: Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, opening essay. Jordan’s language is philosophical and motivational, with period assumptions about agency that should not be substituted for modern psychological evidence.
“The individual must look upon himself as an investment, of untold possibilities if rightly developed.”
Jordan asks the reader to regard personal capacities as worth developing rather than measuring value solely through current achievement or external recognition.
Source note: The Majesty of Calmness, “The Dignity of Self-Reliance.” The represented 1900 work is public domain; the investment metaphor belongs to Jordan’s conduct-of-life rhetoric, not financial advice.
“The man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of some one else's greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts for himself.”
Self-reliance is defined as independent judgment and action rather than imitation of someone whose reputation is already established.
Source note: The Majesty of Calmness, “The Dignity of Self-Reliance.” Jordan’s ideal of independence is period self-development writing; it does not require isolation or refusal of legitimate help.
“Let us live up to the fulness of our possibilities each day. Man has only one day of life—to-day.”
Jordan makes development immediate: today is the only day in which ability, responsibility and intention can actually be converted into conduct.
Source note: The Power of Truth, “People Who Live in Air-Castles.” The line is a present-action argument within conduct-of-life writing, not a literal denial of memory, planning or future obligations.
“If we would make our lives worthy of us, grand and noble, solid and impregnable, we must forsake air-castles of dreaming for strongholds of doing.”
Aspiration has to become action before it can shape a life; Jordan contrasts imagined achievement with concrete work toward a chosen purpose.
Source note: The Power of Truth, “People Who Live in Air-Castles.” The military imagery is metaphorical and belongs to a critique of substituting fantasy for execution.
“Man never rises to the dignity of true living until he has the courage that dares to face ingratitude calmly, and to pursue his course unchanged when his good works meet with thanklessness or disdain.”
Jordan separates the worth of principled action from the applause it receives, arguing that worthwhile conduct sometimes has to continue without gratitude or recognition.
Source note: The Power of Truth, “The Courage to Face Ingratitude.” Project Gutenberg #56020; first published August 1902. Jordan’s standard is moral perseverance, not indifference to all criticism.
“Whoever seeks to work out for himself his destiny, the life-work that all his nature tells him should be his, bravely, calmly and with due consideration of the rights of others and his duties to them, is a reformer.”
Individual vocation is paired with duties to other people: Jordan’s reformer follows a personally meaningful course without treating self-direction as permission to ignore others’ rights.
Source note: The Power of Truth, “The Way of the Reformer.” The qualifying language about rights and duties is retained because it prevents the individualist passage from being reduced to purely self-centered advice.