Quotes about perseverance

If only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful.

There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.

Endurance. Belief. Patience. Hope. These are the key words of our existence.

Perseverance does instead of talent up to a certain point; he got so far, but no further. This honest lad's perseverance and ambition are praiseworthy; he will always be respected for his industry and steadfastness of purpose, but his paintings will always be third-rate. Who would not have been deceived by his zeal and taken it for real talent! There is all the difference in the world between a liking and an aptitude. To make sure of real genius or real taste in a child calls for more accurate observations than is generally suspected, for the child displays his wishes not his capacity, and we judge by the former instead of considering the latter.

You will have to get used to living without results and without hope. You will work for a while, you will be caught, you will confess, and then you will die. Those are the only results that you will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation. In the face of the Thought Police there is no other way.

'But man is not made for defeat,' he said. 'A man can be destroyed but not defeated.'

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man. Or a fish, he thought.

Arm th' obdur'd breast

With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield.

'Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit.'' He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.