Motivation for life quotes — Page 4

Essays, First Series, essay II, “Self-Reliance,” Project Gutenberg #2944. “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist” follows Emerson’s claim that society conspires against the manhood of its members through conformity. The represented Gutenberg witness prints a comma after “man,” while the frozen catalog quotation omits that punctuation; the wording is otherwise the same. It remains Transcendentalist moral rhetoric about self-trust and independence rather than a universal instruction to reject social norms or expertise.

Essay “Self-Reliance.”

The Conduct of Life, essay II, “Power,” Project Gutenberg #39827. “Life is a search after power” appears at the opening of Emerson’s prose discussion after the verse epigraph and introduces his account of capacity, agency and human influence. It remains nineteenth-century Transcendentalist conduct-of-life philosophy rather than an empirical law of motivation or success.

The Conduct of Life; Emerson uses the line while describing life as an expanding field of experience rather than a narrowly fixed allotment.

What All The World’s A-Seeking, Part III, “The Unfoldment,” printed page 75 in the represented 1896 page-text witness, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #14312. Trine says “the true joy of existence comes from living to one’s highest” immediately after urging the reader to “live to your highest.” It remains historical New Thought / conduct-of-life counsel rather than a claim that striving automatically removes hardship or produces happiness in every circumstance.

Two Years Before the Mast, Chapter I, “Departure,” Project Gutenberg #2055. Dana describes his own bewilderment on first going to sea and calls a landsman beginning a sailor’s life uniquely helpless and pitiable. It is first-person maritime memoir shaped by rhetorical exaggeration, not a literal universal ranking of helplessness.

Pippa Passes (1841), represented in the Project Gutenberg Robert Browning works edition #59123. The lyric is sung by Pippa inside a verse drama; its Christian optimism is a character-song within the play, not a factual guarantee that every event is good.

“Rabbi Ben Ezra” (1864), represented in Project Gutenberg #59123, The Works of Robert Browning. The poem speaks through Browning’s imagined Rabbi Ben Ezra and is explicitly theistic; its confidence about age and providence is poetic-religious argument rather than a factual guarantee about later life.

‘An Apology for Idlers,’ represented in Project Gutenberg #69825, a 1905 Thomas B. Mosher reprint of the essay first published in the Cornhill Magazine in July 1877. ‘There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy’ appears in Stevenson's argument that cheerfulness can confer anonymous benefits on others. It remains provocative conduct-of-life essay rhetoric rather than clinical mental-health guidance or a universally binding moral duty.

Essay “El Dorado.”

Familiar Studies of Men and Books, essay ‘Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions,’ section V, Project Gutenberg #425, transcribed from the 1896 Chatto & Windus edition. The surrounding paragraph quotes several Thoreau statements, but ‘To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming...’ is Stevenson's own connective judgment before he returns to quoted Thoreau language. It therefore remains Stevenson literary-biographical criticism rather than a Thoreau quotation or a clinical rule about self-development.

“If—,” in Rewards and Fairies, Project Gutenberg #556. The poem presents a period ideal of masculine self-command through a sequence of conditional tests; the stored lines are literary and moral rhetoric, not a requirement to suppress normal emotion.

Acres of Diamonds; Conwell repeatedly argues that useful opportunity can be found and developed near one’s existing circumstances.

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia.

Rasselas, Chapter XVI; spoken by Imlac while comparing European life with the travelers’ expectations of happiness.

The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, “Pope”; Wikisource transcription of Johnson's Life of Pope. Johnson writes the sentence while discussing Alexander Pope's early estimate of his own abilities and immediately qualifies it by warning that isolated self-estimation can err.

The Rambler, No. 103.

Character, Chapter I, “Influence of Character,” Project Gutenberg #2541. It immediately follows the discussion of small acts and daily discipline, with Smiles describing action, thought and feeling as continuously educating temper, habits and understanding.

Self-Help, Chapter XI, “Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties,” Project Gutenberg #935. The passage follows Charles James Fox’s contrast between early success and perseverance after failure, then leads into examples of discoveries and learning produced through mistakes and failed attempts.

Self-Help, Chapter IV, “Application and Perseverance,” Project Gutenberg #935. The sentence opens a paragraph that continues, “Great results cannot be achieved at once,” and compares advancement in life to walking step by step.

Self-Help, Chapter I, “Self-Help—National and Individual,” Project Gutenberg #935. This is the opening chapter’s statement of Smiles’s self-help argument, where individual initiative is presented as a source of personal growth and, in his period framework, national strength.

The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Chapter IV, “The Stephensons at Killingworth—Education and Self-Education of Father and Son”; represented 1868 revised edition, Project Gutenberg #46229. The excerpt is Smiles’s narration of Stephenson’s patient arithmetic study under John Wigham.

Thrift, Chapter II, “Habits of Thrift,” Project Gutenberg #14418. The sentence summarizes Smiles’s preceding argument that social improvement begins with individual conduct, example and self-respect before one attempts to elevate others.

The Country of the Pointed Firs, opening chapter, represented by Project Gutenberg #367. This is first-person literary narration about the narrator’s return to Dunnet Landing; the lower-case opening is preserved because the quotation is a clause excerpted from a longer sentence.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 11, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 3, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 3, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Letter 30 reflects on death, courage, and the completion of a life.

Letter 74 examines virtue, fortune, and the steadiness required when external conditions change.

Letter 76 contrasts wisdom and virtue with external goods that may arrive by chance.

Letter 76, on learning wisdom in old age, cites the proverb while defending continued philosophical study.

Letter 92 contrasts self-sustaining virtue with happiness dependent on external props.

On the Shortness of Life, Chapter XIX; Seneca urges a move from borrowed busyness toward study, virtue, and a more deliberate course of life.

The Art of War, Chapter IV 'Tactical Dispositions,' section 1, Lionel Giles translation (1910), original scan leaf 82. The sentence about good fighters first making themselves secure against defeat opens the chapter's tactical argument; it remains ancient military-strategy reasoning rather than a universal self-help rule.

House Committee on the Judiciary woman-suffrage hearing, January 18, 1892. The Library of Congress preserves the official eight-page hearing pamphlet and confirms Anthony among its speakers; the exact interjection is reported in History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV, edited by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper and represented by Project Gutenberg #29870. Anthony makes the remark at the close of Lucy Stone’s argument while introducing Isabella Beecher Hooker. It is Anthony’s live speaker voice within a multi-speaker hearing.

Citizenship in a Republic, commonly called the Man in the Arena speech; Roosevelt contrasts action with spectatorship.

Citizenship in a Republic; this short clause comes from the “man in the arena” passage.

Excerpt from the “Man in the Arena” passage, Paris, April 23, 1910.

Speech at Syracuse, New York, September 7, 1903.

The Strenuous Life, speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, April 10, 1899; Project Gutenberg #58821. The sentence appears in Roosevelt’s opening argument for active effort and immediately follows his praise of the person who embodies “victorious effort”; it is preserved as historical motivational rhetoric rather than a promise that effort always produces success.

The Pleasures of Hope, Part I, represented in The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, Project Gutenberg #59788. ‘’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view’ appears in the poem's opening mountain image and immediately leads into a comparison with imagined future joys appearing more pleasing from afar. It remains Romantic poetic analogy and philosophical observation rather than an empirical law of visual perception, memory or decision-making.

Common Sense (1776), Introduction. The represented opening sentence is verified in Project Gutenberg #147 and the validated scan-backed Wikisource transcription; Paine argues that familiarity can make a wrong practice appear right before public argument unsettles the custom.

Opening of The American Crisis No. I; Paine addresses perseverance during a difficult stage of the American Revolution.

Candide, Chapter XXX, Project Gutenberg #19942, uncredited public-domain English translation. Candide says “that we must cultivate our garden” to Pangloss and Martin near the tale’s close after reflecting on the old Turk’s life of work. This is translated fictional dialogue and literary resolution, not Voltaire autobiography or a literal guarantee that work resolves every hardship.

Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, essay “Wordsworth,” printed page 41 in the Macmillan 1910 Library Edition pagination reproduced by Project Gutenberg #4037. Pater says that the contrast between Wordsworth’s higher and lower poetic moods “makes the reading of Wordsworth an excellent sort of training towards the things of art and poetry.” This remains Pater’s critical judgment about aesthetic training, not an experimentally established educational outcome.

Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, essay “Wordsworth,” printed page 42 in the Macmillan 1910 Library Edition pagination reproduced by Project Gutenberg #4037. The reading-between-the-lines passage follows Pater’s claim that Wordsworth-reading can train aesthetic discrimination; he attributes to receptive readers a habit of inference plus faith in concentration and collectedness of mind. This remains nineteenth-century literary criticism rather than cognitive-science evidence.

Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, essay “Style,” printed page 5 in the standard Macmillan 1910 Library Edition pagination reproduced by Project Gutenberg #4037. “all progress of mind consists for the most part in differentiation...” opens Pater’s argument by distinguishing prose, verse and poetry. This is literary-aesthetic criticism, not a modern experimental claim about cognition or learning.

The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The metaphor belongs to Pater’s aesthetic philosophy and should not be reduced to generic productivity advice.

The Renaissance, Preface; Project Gutenberg #2398. “These impressions” refers to responses produced by art, landscape, personality and other aesthetic objects.

The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The sentence names Comte, Hegel and one’s own orthodoxy in its immediate continuation.

No Name, Project Gutenberg #1438. Mr Pendril speaks after the Vanstone sisters lose their legal and financial position; the surrounding dialogue immediately qualifies the hope as uncertain and dependent on future events.

The Song of the Lark, Part VI, Chapter X, Project Gutenberg #44. ‘Artistic growth is... a refining of the sense of truthfulness’ is narrator reflection immediately after Harsanyi calls passion the artist's ‘open secret’ and as Thea Kronborg comes into fuller command of her mature performance. It belongs to Cather's fictional account of artistic formation and performance, not an empirical measurement of artistic development or a guarantee that all artists mature in the same way.

“Thanatopsis,” represented in Project Gutenberg #29700. These lines begin the poem’s closing counsel after its extended description of death and nature; the language is poetic and spiritual rather than clinical end-of-life guidance.

“To a Waterfowl,” represented in Project Gutenberg #29700. The closing lines explicitly infer providential guidance from the bird’s flight; the claim remains Christian-inflected lyric reflection, not evidence about supernatural intervention.

Closing lines of Invictus; Henley ends a poem about hardship with a statement of inner command.

Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, Chapter XIV, “Failure as a Success,” Project Gutenberg #51469. “Failure is often the turning-point...” follows Jordan’s account of a failed log-rafting experiment that nevertheless generated useful hydrographic observations. The word “often” is retained: this is conduct-of-life rhetoric about possible redirection after failure, not a guarantee that failure produces improvement.

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.

On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth, first published March 1827. The sentence belongs to Hazlitt’s account of expansive youthful expectation and should not be treated as a literal claim of control over the future.

The Round Table, No. 1, “On the Love of Life,” January 15, 1815. The phrase occurs inside Hazlitt’s broader argument that passions and projects strengthen attachment to life.

The Round Table, No. 1, ‘On the Love of Life,’ dated 15 January 1815 in the represented collected text, Project Gutenberg #55932. The sentence opens Hazlitt's argument that attachment to life is driven more by active passions than by present enjoyment and is immediately followed by ‘Without life there can be no action.’ It is philosophical-psychological essay argument, not modern clinical evidence.

The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.

“Is Life Worth Living?” in The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, Project Gutenberg #26659. James explicitly says the “scientific proof” may remain unclear; the passage is philosophical encouragement about action under uncertainty, not empirical proof that belief guarantees outcomes.

Signs of Change, lecture “Useful Work versus Useless Toil”; Project Gutenberg #3053. “Thus” refers to creative work engaging mind, memory, imagination and bodily effort.

Signs of Change, lecture “Dawn of a New Epoch”; Project Gutenberg #3053. The sentence occurs inside Morris’s proposed organization of socially useful labor.

Signs of Change, lecture “The Aims of Art”; Project Gutenberg #3053. The passage belongs to Morris’s socialist argument about labor, leisure and art in daily life.

Some Fruits of Solitude, Preface, reviewed against the Oxford Text Archive transcription of the licensed 1693 edition. Penn says time is what people want most but use worst and immediately frames stewardship of time in explicitly religious accountability to God, neighbour and self; it remains Quaker conduct-of-life reflection rather than productivity research.

All’s Well That Ends Well, Act I, Scene 1; Helena resolves to act rather than ascribe every possibility to fate. Verified against Wikisource’s 1910 facsimile transcription of the 1623 First Folio (folio spelling “Our remedies oft in our selues do lye”); direct evidence resolves to the reviewed Act I transcription.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1, Duke Senior; 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Jack R. Crawford, printed page 24 / Wikisource scan leaf 36. “Sweet are the uses of adversity” occurs in Duke Senior’s Forest of Arden reflection on exile, winter and the lessons he claims to find outside court life. It remains fictional dramatic speech rather than Shakespeare’s autobiographical advice or a modern psychological claim about hardship.

Act 5, Scene 2.

Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5; Ophelia speaks during her disrupted state, so the line remains dramatic dialogue rather than Shakespearean autobiography.

Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Caesar tells Calpurnia, ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; / The valiant never taste of death but once,’ while rejecting her fear and deciding to go out. The line remains Caesar’s dramatic reasoning, not Shakespeare’s direct personal counsel.

Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2, in the 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Lawrence Mason. Cassius tells Brutus that men can be masters of their fates and immediately continues, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’ This is Cassius’s political persuasion inside the drama, not neutral historical evidence or Shakespeare speaking directly.

Measure for Measure, Lucio to Isabella. The retained modern locator is Act I, Scene 4; the represented 1623 First Folio witness, reviewed through the 1910 Methuen facsimile transcription on Wikisource, labels the same scene Act I, Scene V (Scena Quinta). Lucio urges Isabella to test her ability to plead for Claudio rather than let doubt prevent the attempt. This is fictional dramatic speech, not Shakespeare speaking autobiographically or a universal psychological law.

Act 2, Scene 3; Friar Laurence urges Romeo to move with greater care.

Act 5, Scene 1.

The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1; Antonio says this while urging Sebastian toward a conspiracy against Alonso. The phrase is therefore embedded in morally compromised dramatic persuasion rather than neutral advice.