A fiery chariot, borne on buoyant pinions,
Sweeps near me now! I soon shall ready be
To pierce the ether's high, unknown dominions,
To reach new spheres of pure activity!
Do well and right, and let the world sink.
Let thy mind still be bent, still plotting, where,
And when, and how thy business may be done.
Slackness breeds worms; but the sure traveller,
Though he alights sometimes still goeth on.
The shortest answer is doing.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.
A man that's fond precociously of stirring
Must be a spoon.
It is not book learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies, do a thing—"carry a message to Garcia."
Fungar vice cotis, acutum
Reddere qua? ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi.
I will perform the function of a whetstone,
which is able to restore sharpness to iron,
though itself unable to cut.
In medias res.
Into the midst of things.
That action which appears most conducive to the happiness and virtue of mankind.
Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.
Quelque éclatante que soit une action, elle
ne doit pas passer pour grande, lorsqu'elle n'est
pas l'effet d'un grand dessein.
However resplendent an action may be, it
should not be accounted great unless it is the
result of a great design.
No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record, written by fingers ghostly,
As a blessing or a curse, and mostly
In the greater weakness or greater strength
Of the acts which follow it.
The good one, after every action, closes
His volume, and ascends with it to God.
The other keeps his dreadful day-book open
Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,
The record of the action fades away,
And leaves a line of white across the page
Now if my act be good, as I believe,
It cannot be recalled. It is already
Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.
The rest is yours.
With useless endeavour,
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within and God o'erhead.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Every man feels instinctively that all the
beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less
than a single lovely action.
Nil actum credens dum quid superesset agendum.
Thinking that nothing was done, if anything remained to do.
Go, and do thou likewise.
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene.
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
