Source identified
“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
The seasonal image turns hardship into a temporary phase: decline can contain the possibility of renewal even when that renewal is not yet visible.
Source note: Final line of Ode to the West Wind; the changing seasons become a metaphor for historical and personal renewal.
Source identified
“Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end.”
The compact dialogue makes the difficulty of the road explicit while also committing to continuing all the way to its end.
Source note: “Up-Hill,” in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862); Project Gutenberg #16950. The road is a spiritual-life allegory, so the line is not reduced to literal travel advice.
Source identified
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
Voice: Fictional character · Amy March Laurence
Difficulty becomes part of learning rather than proof that progress is impossible; skill grows while the storm is being navigated.
Source note: Little Women; the represented public-domain text places the sailing metaphor inside the novel’s broader language of learning through difficulty.
Source identified
“whoever may Discern true ends here, shall grow pure enough To love them, brave enough to strive for them, And strong to reach them though the roads be rough”
The political poem links clearer ends with the character needed to pursue them, moving from discernment to courage, effort and persistence on a difficult road.
Source note: Casa Guidi Windows, Part II; Project Gutenberg #31015. Browning is writing specifically about Tuscan and Italian political freedom, so the excerpt is not detached from its Risorgimento context.
Source identified
“But I kept at it”
The short phrase summarizes Washington’s response to repeated failure while learning demanding household work under Mrs. Ruffner’s supervision.
Source note: Working With the Hands, Chapter I; Project Gutenberg #64504. This is an autobiographical fragment whose surrounding paragraph describes repeated attempts before improvement.
Source identified
“His motto was 'Persevere!'”
Smiles condenses Stephenson’s response to repeated engineering and institutional obstacles into a single governing principle of continued effort.
Source note: The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Chapter XI, “Chat Moss—Construction of the Railway”; represented 1868 revised edition, Project Gutenberg #46229. The motto appears in Smiles’s surrounding narration immediately after the quoted Chat Moss recollection.