| “Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.” | Booker T. Washington | Up from Slavery, 1901 | |
| “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” | Booker T. Washington | Up from Slavery, 1901 | |
| “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” | Booker T. Washington | Up From Slavery, 1901 | |
| “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” | Charlotte Brontë | Jane Eyre, ch. 23 | |
| “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” | Charlotte Brontë | Jane Eyre, ch. 27 | |
| “Friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine, conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection.” | Cicero | De Amicitia, VI.20 | |
| “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” | Cicero | Pro Plancio, XXXIII | |
| “Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?” | Confucius | Analects, I.1 | |
| “Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.” | Confucius | Analects, II.15 | |
| “When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it — this is knowledge.” | Confucius | Analects, II.17 | |
| “To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.” | Confucius | Analects, II.24 | |
| “When the year becomes cold, then we know how the pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves.” | Confucius | Analects, IX.27 | |
| “With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow — I have still joy in the midst of these things.” | Confucius | Analects, VII.15 | |
| “Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.” | Confucius | Analects, XIV.36 | |
| “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” | Confucius | Analects, XV.23 | |
| “Want of forbearance in small matters confounds great plans.” | Confucius | Analects, XV.26 | |
| “To have faults and not to reform them — this, indeed, should be pronounced having faults.” | Confucius | Analects, XV.29 | |
| “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” | Emily Dickinson | Letter, 1872 | |
| “That Love is all there is, is all we know of Love.” | Emily Dickinson | Poem 1765 | |
| “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.” | Emily Dickinson | Poem 254 | |
| “The Soul selects her own Society — then — shuts the Door.” | Emily Dickinson | Poem 303 | |
| “The Brain — is wider than the Sky —” | Emily Dickinson | Poem 632 | |
| “It is difficulties that show what men are.” | Epictetus | Discourses, I.24 | |
| “For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn that which he thinks that he knows.” | Epictetus | Discourses, II.17 (George Long translation, 1877) | |
| “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” | Epictetus | Discourses, III.23 | |
| “Of things some are in our power, and others are not.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, 1 (George Long translation, 1877) | |
| “Never say about anything, I have lost it, but say I have restored it.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, 11 (George Long translation, 1877) | |
| “In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, 29 | |
| “Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, 5 | |
| “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, 5 | |
| “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, 5 | |
| “Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, 8 | |
| “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, ch. 5 | |
| “Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, V | |
| “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, V | |
| “In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.” | Epictetus | Enchiridion, XXIX | |
| “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” | Frederick Douglass | Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, ch. X | |
| “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” | Frederick Douglass | West India Emancipation address, 1857 | |
| “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” | Frederick Douglass | West India Emancipation address, 1857 | |
| “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” | Frederick Douglass | West India Emancipation, 1857 | |
| “The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts.” | George Eliot | Middlemarch, Finale | |
| “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” | Henry David Thoreau | Journal, 1839 | |
| “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “I love a broad margin to my life.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “In the long run men hit only what they aim at.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “Our life is frittered away by detail.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “Things do not change; we change.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” | Henry David Thoreau | Walden, 1854 | |
| “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” | Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice, ch. 34 | |
| “Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, III.7 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, IV.17 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, IV.23 | |
| “Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, IV.49 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present—I am rising to the work of a human being.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, V.1 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles, but when thou hast failed, return back again.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, V.9 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar, that thou art not dyed with this dye; for such things happen.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VI.30 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrongdoer.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VI.6 | |
| “Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VII.27 | |
| “Confine thyself to the present.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VII.29 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VII.59 | |
| “Look within. Within is the fountain of good.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VII.59 | |
| “Be not ashamed to be helped.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VII.7 | |
| “Men exist for the sake of one another.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VIII.59 | |
| “Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, VIII.59 | |
| “A good disposition is invincible if it be genuine.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, XI.18 (George Long translation, 1862) | |
| “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” | Marcus Aurelius | Meditations, XII.17 | |
| “The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterwards they make of them honey, which is all their own.” | Michel de Montaigne | Essays, I.26 | |
| “The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness.” | Michel de Montaigne | Essays, I.26 | |
| “Because it was he, because it was I.” | Michel de Montaigne | Essays, I.28 | |
| “We must reserve a back shop wholly our own and entirely free, wherein to establish our true liberty.” | Michel de Montaigne | Essays, I.39 | |
| “When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep.” | Michel de Montaigne | Essays, III.13 | |
| “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Circles, 1841 | |
| “Hitch your wagon to a star.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Civilization, 1870 | |
| “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Friendship, 1841 | |
| “Self-trust is the essence of heroism.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Heroism, 1841 | |
| “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Nature, 1836 | |
| “Concentration is the secret of strength.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Power, 1860 | |
| “Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they exist with God to-day.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men — that is genius.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Self-Reliance, 1841 | |
| “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Works and Days, 1870 | |
| “Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, CI | |
| “Our lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty; the difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, CIV (Richard M. Gummere translation, 1925) | |
| “While we are postponing, life speeds by.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, I | |
| “Nowhere is he who is everywhere.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, II | |
| “To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, II | |
| “Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, III | |
| “When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, LXXI (Richard M. Gummere translation, 1920) | |
| “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, LXXVI | |
| “No good thing is pleasant to possess without friends to share it.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, VI | |
| “Men learn while they teach.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, VII | |
| “Withdraw into yourself as much as you can.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, VII | |
| “I do not obey God, I agree with him.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, XCVI | |
| “Cherish some man of high character, and keep him ever before your eyes, living as if he were watching you.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, XI | |
| “There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, XIII | |
| “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, XIII | |
| “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.” | Seneca | Letters to Lucilius, XLVII | |
| “He who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first instalment of it.” | Seneca | On Benefits, II.22 | |
| “Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.” | Seneca | On Providence, V | |
| “I exist as I am, that is enough.” | Walt Whitman | Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself" | |
| “I exist as I am, that is enough.” | Walt Whitman | Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself | |
| “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.” | Walt Whitman | Leaves of Grass, Song of the Open Road | |
| “I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” | Walt Whitman | Song of Myself | |
| “I exist as I am, that is enough.” | Walt Whitman | Song of Myself | |
| “I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.” | Walt Whitman | Song of Myself | |
| “I loafe and invite my soul.” | Walt Whitman | Song of Myself | |
| “You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books.” | Walt Whitman | Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass | |
| “I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness.” | Walt Whitman | Song of the Open Road | |
| “The course of true love never did run smooth.” | William Shakespeare | A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I.i | |
| “And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.” | William Shakespeare | A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V.1 | |
| “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” | William Shakespeare | All’s Well That Ends Well, IV.3 | |
| “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” | William Shakespeare | As You Like It, II.1 | |
| “This above all: to thine own self be true.” | William Shakespeare | Hamlet, I.3 | |
| “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.” | William Shakespeare | Hamlet, I.3 | |
| “This above all: to thine own self be true.” | William Shakespeare | Hamlet, I.iii | |
| “Brevity is the soul of wit.” | William Shakespeare | Hamlet, II.2 | |
| “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” | William Shakespeare | Hamlet, II.2 | |
| “To sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there's the rub.” | William Shakespeare | Hamlet, III.1 | |
| “The readiness is all.” | William Shakespeare | Hamlet, V.2 | |
| “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” | William Shakespeare | Henry IV, Part 2, III.1 | |
| “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” | William Shakespeare | Henry IV, Part 2, III.i | |
| “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” | William Shakespeare | Julius Caesar, II.2 | |
| “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” | William Shakespeare | Julius Caesar, II.ii | |
| “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” | William Shakespeare | Julius Caesar, IV.3 | |
| “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” | William Shakespeare | Julius Caesar, IV.3 | |
| “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” | William Shakespeare | Julius Caesar, IV.iii | |
| “Pray you now, forget and forgive.” | William Shakespeare | King Lear, IV.7 | |
| “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.” | William Shakespeare | Macbeth, I.3 | |
| “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself.” | William Shakespeare | Macbeth, I.7 | |
| “Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.” | William Shakespeare | Macbeth, I.7 | |
| “Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care.” | William Shakespeare | Macbeth, II.2 | |
| “Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.” | William Shakespeare | Macbeth, III.2 | |
| “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” | William Shakespeare | Measure for Measure, I.iv | |
| “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?” | William Shakespeare | Othello, II.iii | |
| “True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings.” | William Shakespeare | Richard III, V.2 | |
| “The quality of mercy is not strained.” | William Shakespeare | The Merchant of Venice, IV.1 | |
| “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” | William Shakespeare | The Tempest, IV.1 | |
| “The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.” | William Shakespeare | The Tempest, V.1 | |
| “Perseverance, dear my lord, keeps honour bright.” | William Shakespeare | Troilus and Cressida, III.3 | |
| “I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks.” | William Shakespeare | Twelfth Night, III.iii | |
