Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

Think enthusiastically about everything; but especially about your job. If you do, you'll put a torch of glory in your life. If you love your job with enthusiasm, you'll shake it to pieces. You'll love it into greatness, you'll upgrade it, you'll fill it with prestige and power.

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.

How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave.

I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.

It is none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.