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Quotes about motivation
Motivational writing is older than most people assume. Samuel Smiles published Self-Help in 1859, and by 1894 Orison Swett Marden was selling a very American version in Pushing to the Front, full of stories about boys who rose from nothing.
Those books run on anecdote and exhortation, and some of the anecdotes wouldn't survive a fact-check. Lines here are labelled, so you can see which are from old books and which are popular sayings with no name attached.
From the books
Checked word for word against public-domain editions.
We wish to live for what is great, not for what is mean.
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… reason. I have a house, a closet which holds my books, a table, a garden, a field: are these, any or all, a reason for refusing the angel who beckons me away,—as if there were no room or skill elsewhere that could reproduce for me as my like or my enlarging wants may require? We wish to live for what is great, not for what is mean. I do not wish to live for the sake of my warm house, my orchard, or my pictures. I do not wish to live to wear out my boots.
Press on where truth begins to dawn.
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Courage, my mind, and press on mightily. God is our helper, He made us, and not we ourselves. Press on where truth begins to dawn. Suppose, now, the voice of a body begins to sound, and does sound, and sounds on, and list, it ceases; it is silence now, and that voice is past, and is no more a voice. Before it sounded, it was to come, and could not be measured, because as yet it was not, and now it cannot, …
If you are earnest, you will accomplish much.
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… virtue.' He begged to ask what they were, and was told, 'Gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness. If you are grave, you will not be treated with disrespect. If you are generous, you will win all. If you are sincere, people will repose trust in you. If you are earnest, you will accomplish much. If you are kind, this will enable you to employ the services of others.
If we have an aim and yet can never reach it, then it is no aim at all.
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Yes, we must become Brahma. We must not shrink to avow this. Our existence is meaningless if we never can expect to realise the highest perfection that there is. If we have an aim and yet can never reach it, then it is no aim at all.
The world always stands aside for the determined man.
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The world always stands aside for the determined man. Will makes a way, even through seeming impossibilities. "It is the half a neck nearer that shows the blood and wins the race; the one march more that wins the campaign: the five minutes more of unyielding courage that wins the fight." Again and again had the irrepressible …
To spirited people, difficult tasks are usually the most delightful ones.
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.
Courage mounteth with occasion.
The spectacle of effort is what awakens and sustains our own effort.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
Victories that are easy are cheap.
Whither are you looking, whither are you stretching forward? everything future is uncertain: live now straightway.
A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything.
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
In study, as in business, energy is the great thing.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
We may make these times better, if we bestir ourselves.
Sloth never climbed a hill, nor overcame a difficulty that it could avoid.
All things greatly outgrow their beginnings.
Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.
To recover thy life is in thy power.
Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you.
The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the Power; but they who do not the thing have not the power.
Aspiration lifts the life; groveling lowers it.
Dreaming without effort will only waste your power.
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do.
Nothing remarkable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood.
Make trial of your power, and you will know how far it reaches.
Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant.
Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
Forward with us, courageous reader; be it towards failure, or towards success!
Life only avails, not the having lived.
Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by Action alone.
The man without a purpose never leaves his mark upon the world.
Popular sayings
Widely repeated lines with no name attached, because nobody can honestly put one on them.
Life is what you make it.
A positive attitude brings positive results.
Dreams are free.
Sweat now, shine later.
You can do anything you set your mind to.
Now or never.
It always seems impossible until it's done.
The sky's the limit.
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