Other related topics at: Effort Project Steps Virtue and Vice 326. Perseverance; Writing "A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it." Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides Link 440. Diligence; Disappointment; Perseverance "A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected." Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac] Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas. Link 441. Ability; Diligence; Perseverance; Skill "Few things are impossible to diligence and skill." Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac] Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas. Link 443. Perseverance "Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance; yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigor three hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe." Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac] Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas. Link 560. Choice; Perseverance Of 'Polyphilus,' a dilettante: "I have found him, within this last half year, deciphering the Chinese language, making a farce, collecting a vocabulary of the obsolete terms of the English law, writing an inquiry concerning the ancient Corinthian brass, and forming a new scheme of the variations of the needle. [Compass] Thus is the powerful genius, which might have extended the sphere of any science, or benefited the world in any profession, dissipated in a boundless variety, without profit to others or to himself. He makes sudden irruptions into the regions of knowledge, and sees all obstacles give way before him; but he never stays long enough to complete his conquest, to establish laws, or bring away the spoils. Johnson: Rambler #19 (May 22, 1750) Link 593. Adversity; Diligence; Equanimity; Misfortune; Patience; Perseverance "Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of nature, are calls to labour and diligence. When we feel any pressure of distress, we are not to conclude that we can only obey the will of Heaven by languishing under it, any more than when we perceive the pain of thirst, we are to imagine that water is prohibited." Johnson: Rambler #32 (July 7, 1750) Link 613. Perseverance "The resolution of the combat is seldom equal to the vehemence of the charge. He that meets with an opposition which he did not expect loses his courage. The violence of his first onset is succeeded by a lasting and unconquerable languor; miscarriage makes him fearful of giving way to new hopes; and the contemplation of an attempt, in which he has fallen below his own expectations, is painful and vexatious; he therefore naturally turns his attentions to more pleasing objects, and habituates his imagination to other entertainments, till, by slow degrees, he quits his first pursuit, and suffers some other project to take possession of his thoughts, in which the same ardour of mind promises him again certain successes, and which disappointments of the same kind compel him to abandon." Johnson: Rambler #43 (August 14, 1750) Link 614. Perseverance "Too much vigour in the beginning of an undertaking often intercepts and prevents the steadiness and perseverance always necessary in the conduct of a complicated scheme." Johnson: Rambler #43 (August 14, 1750) Link 615. Perseverance "All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and the last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings." Johnson: Rambler #43 (August 14, 1750) Link 616. Perseverance; Vision "...those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they cannot batter; and the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks." Johnson: Rambler #43 (August 14, 1750) Link 617. Perseverance; Vision "...whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised." Johnson: Rambler #43 (August 14, 1750) Link 934. Perseverance; Progress; Vision "It is impossible to determine the limits of inquiry, or to foresee what consequences a new discovery can produce. He who suffers not his faculties to lie torpid has a chance, whatever be his employment, of doing good to his fellow creatures. The man that first ranged the woods in search of medicinal springs, or climbed the mountains for salutary plants, has undoubtedly merited the gratitude of posterity, how much soever his frequent miscarriages might excite the scorn of his contemporaries. If what appears little be universally despised, nothing greater can be attained; for all that is great was at first little, and rose to its present bulk by gradual accessions and accumulated labours." Johnson: Rambler #83 (January 1, 1751) Link 976. Attention; Focus; Perseverance "It ... frequently happens that the most recluse are not the most vigorous prosecutors of study. Many impose upon the world, and many upon themselves, by an appearance of severe and exemplary diligence, when they, in reality, give themselves up to the luxury of fancy, please their minds with regulating the past or planning out the future, place themselves at will in varied situations of happiness, and slumber away their days in voluntary visions. In the journey of life, some are left behind because they are naturally feeble and slow, some because they miss the way, and many because they leave it by choice, and, instead of pressing onward with a steady pace, delight themselves with momentary deviations, turn aside to pluck every flower, and repose in every shade." Johnson: Rambler #89 (January 22, 1751) Link 1,167. Disappointment; Perseverance; Vision "Some hindrances will be found in every road of life, but he that fixes his eyes upon any thing at a distance necessarily loses sight of all that fills up the intermediate space, and therefore sets forward with alacrity and confidence, nor suspects a thousand obstacles by which he afterwards finds his passage embarrassed and obstructed. Some are, indeed, stopped at once in their career by a sudden shock of calamity, or diverted to a different direction by the cross impulse of some violent passion; but far the greater part languish by slow degrees, deviate at first into slight obliquities, and themselves scarcely perceive at what time their ardour forsook them, or when they lost sight of their original design." Johnson: Rambler #127 (June 4, 1751) Link 1,208. Learning; Perseverance; Progress "The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions." Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751) Link 1,209. Intimidation; Perseverance; Vanity "To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles." Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751) Link 1,247. Perseverance; Success "He whose courage has made way against the turbulence of opposition, and whose vigour has broken through the snares of distress, has many advantages over those that have slept in the shades of indolence, and whose retrospect of time can entertain them with nothing but day rising upon day, and year gliding after year." Johnson: Rambler #150 (August 24, 1751) Link 1,429. Faith; Perseverance; Pride; Virtue The utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive is a constant and determinate pursuit of virtue, without regard to present dangers or advantages; a continual reference of every action to the divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can obtain. But that pride which many, who presume to boast of generous sentiments, allow to regulate their measures has nothing nobler in view than the approbation of men, of beings whose superiority we are under no obligation to acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent reward. Johnson: Rambler #185 (December 24, 1751) Link 1,463. Focus; Implementation; Perseverance "They whose activity of imagination is often shifting the scenes of expectation, are frequently subject to such sallies of caprice as make all their actions fortuitous, destroy the value of their friendship, obstruct the efficacy of their virtues, and set them below the meanest of those who persist in their resolutions, execute what they design, and perform what they have promised." Johnson: Rambler #201 (February 18, 1752) Link 1,487. Perseverance; Completion "He that has cultivated the tree, watched the swelling bud and opening blossom, and pleased himself with computing how much every sun and shower add to its growth, scarcely stays till the fruit has obtained its maturity, but defeats his own cares by eagerness to reward them. When we have diligently laboured for any purpose, we are willing to believe that we have attained it, and, because we have already done much, too suddenly conclude that no more is to be done." Johnson: Rambler #207 (March 10, 1752) Link 1,488. Perseverance; Completion "All attraction is increased by the approach of the attracting body. We never find ourselves so desirous to finish as in the latter part of our work, or so impatient of delay as when we know that delay cannot be long. This unseasonable importunity of discontent may be partly imputed to languor and weariness, which must always oppress those more whose toil has been longer continued; but the greater part usually proceeds from frequent contemplation of that ease which is now considered as within reach, and which, and which, when it has once flattered our hopes, we cannot suffer to be withheld." Johnson: Rambler #207 (March 10, 1752) Link 1,489. Perseverance; Completion "Whatever motive first incited action has still greater force to stimulate perseverance; since he that might have lain still at first in blameless obscurity cannot afterwards desist but with infamy and reproach. He, whom a doubtful promise of distant good could encourage to set difficulties at defiance, ought not to remit his vigour, when he has almost obtained his recompense. To faint or loiter, when only the last efforts are required, is to steer the ship through tempests, and abandon it to the winds in sight of land; it is to break the ground and scatter the seed, and at last to neglect the harvest." Johnson: Rambler #207 (March 10, 1752) Link