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Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.
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“Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.”

Frederick Douglass

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Source
Self-Made Men
Date
c. 1872
Meaning

Meaning of “Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.”

Douglass grants the importance of opportunity while insisting that sustained exertion remains necessary for achievement, refusing to let either circumstance or effort erase the importance of the other.

Source context

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Self-Made Men lecture, commonly dated to 1872 in edited versions. Library of Congress preserves undated manuscript, typescript and printed-copy materials, including a later Carlisle version; Douglass delivered and revised the lecture across his speaking career. The lecture also stresses social interdependence, so this line should not be reduced to a simplistic bootstrap claim.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

BusinessConsistencyDiscipline Quotes About Habits, Practice & ConsistencyEffortGrowthHard WorkLeadershipMotivational Quotes for Action, Effort & PersistencePatiencePerseverance Quotes About Sustained EffortResponsibilitySelf ImprovementSelf-Control Quotes About Restraint & JudgmentShortSuccessMotivation For Work
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My race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner.
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“My race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner.”

Booker T. Washington · Up from Slavery · 1901
Meaning & context

Distinctive success can come from doing ordinary work unusually well, emphasizing thoroughness and indispensable usefulness rather than status.

Source details

Up from Slavery, Chapter XVI, “Europe,” Project Gutenberg #2376. While discussing Henry O. Tanner and recognition for excellent work, Washington restates his Tuskegee principle that advancement depends on doing useful work so thoroughly that its value becomes difficult to ignore.

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Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business.
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“Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business.”

P. T. Barnum · The Art of Money Getting · 1880
Meaning & context

The sentence presents business success as a compound result of sustained energy and persistence rather than a single clever idea or fortunate moment.

Source details

The Art of Money Getting, in Barnum’s discussion of thorough work and business effort.

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The master-word is Work
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“The master-word is Work”

William Osler · The Master-Word in Medicine · 1903
Meaning & context

Osler makes sustained work the organizing principle of his address to medical students, emphasizing disciplined practice over brilliance without application.

Source details

The Master-Word in Medicine, address delivered October 1, 1903 at the opening of the new buildings of the University of Toronto Medical Faculty; reviewed against the represented 1903 John Murphy pamphlet, Internet Archive identifier b28060805. ‘The master-word is Work’ is Osler’s organizing refrain and is followed by his appeal to write the word on the heart and forehead. This remains historical professional rhetoric rather than an endorsement of unsafe working hours or workaholism.

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