Genius is mainly an affair of energy. [ Matthew Arnold ]
Energy and persistence conquer all things. [ Benjamin Franklin ]
Purpose directs energy, and purpose makes energy. [ Charles H. Parkhurst ]
He alone has energy that cannot be deprived of it. [ Lavater ]
A man of intellect without energy added to it is a failure. [ Chamfort ]
Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Strength is not energy; some authors have more muscles than talent. [ Joubert ]
Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. [ Daniel Webster ]
Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman - repose in energy. [ Emerson ]
He who has neither friend, nor enemy, is without talents, powers, or energy. [ Lavater ]
Why complain of wanting light? It is courage, energy, perseverance that I want. [ Carlyle ]
A genius is one who is endowed with an excess of nervous energy and sensibility. [ Arthur Schopenhauer ]
Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite, - energy. [ Ruskin ]
But what is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy: only the precursor of the reason. [ Emerson ]
The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect and virtues. [ Channing ]
What is past is past. There is a future left to all men, who have the virtue to repent and the energy to atone. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
Liberty is quite as much a moral as a political growth, - the result of free individual action, energy, and independence. [ Samuel Smiles ]
In health there is liberty. Health is the first of all liberties, and happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health. [ Amiel ]
Failures always overtake those who have the power to do, without the will to act, and who need that essential quality in life, energy. [ James Ellis ]
Mere intelligence without corresponding energy of the will is a polished sword in its scabbard, contemptible, if it is never drawn forth. [ Lindner ]
The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. [ Johnson ]
A man of intellect is lost unless he unites energy of character to intellect. When we have the lantern of Diogenes we must have his staff. [ Chamfort ]
The soul that is the abode of chastity acquires an energy which enables her to surmount with ease the obstacles that lie along the path of duty. [ Joubert ]
Consciousness of error is, to a certain extent, a consciousness of understanding; and correction of error is the plainest proof of energy and mastery. [ Landor ]
We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves. [ Colton ]
Genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert: that energy which collects, combines, amplifies and animates. [ Johnson ]
Hypocrisy of manners, a vice peculiar to modern nations, has contributed more than one thinks to destroy that energy of character which distinguished the nations of antiquity. [ Condorcet ]
Make Hamilton Bamilton, make Douglas Puglas, make Percy Bercy, and Stanley Tanley, and where would be the long-resounding march and energy divine of the roll-call of the peerage? [ G. A. Sala ]
Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman - repose in energy. The Greek battle pieces are calm; the heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect. [ Emerson ]
Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind. [ Montaigne ]
Child of earth and earthly sorrows - child of God and immortal hopes - arise from thy sadness, gird up the loins of thy mind, and with unfaltering energy press toward thy rest and reward on high. [ E. L. Magoon ]
Government is a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing over-much kills the self-help and energy of the governed. [ Wendell Phillips ]
It is hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert fires people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone. [ Emerson ]
Let your pen fail, begin to trifle with blotting-paper, look at the ceiling, bite your nails, and otherwise dally with your purpose, and you waste your time, scatter your thoughts, and repress the nervous energy necessary for your task. [ G. H. Lewes ]
Grief or misfortune seems to be indispensable to the development of intelligence, energy, and virtue. The proofs to which the people are submitted, as with individuals, are necessary then to draw them from their lethargy, to disclose their character. [ Fearon ]
As unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its opposite - variety; so repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite - energy. It is the most unfailing test of beauty; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not. [ Ruskin ]
Necessity is always the first stimulus to industry, and those who conduct it with prudence, perseverance and energy will rarely fail. Viewed in this light, the necessity of labor is not a chastisement, but a blessing, - the very root and spring of all that we call progress in individuals and civilization in nations. [ Samuel Smiles ]
Motives are symptoms of weakness, and supplements for the deficient energy of the living principle, the law within us. Let them then be reserved for those momentous acts and duties in which the strongest and best balanced natures must feel themselves deficient, and where humility no less than prudence prescribes deliberation. [ Coleridge ]
People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor. [ Goethe ]
There is no moment like the present: not only so, but moreover, there is no moment at all, that is, no instant force and energy, but in the present. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him can have no hope from them afterwards; they will be dissipated, lost, and perish in the hurry and skurry of the world, or sunk in the slough of indolence. [ Miss Edgeworth ]
Individuals possessing moderate sized brains easily find their proper sphere, and enjoy in it scope for all their energy. In ordinary circumstances they distinguish themselves, but they sink when difficulties accumulate around them. Persons with large brains, on the other hand, do not readily attain their appropriate place; common occurrences do not rouse or call them forth. [ George Combe ]
Enthusiasm is a virtue rarely to be met with in seasons of calm and unruffled prosperity. Enthusiasn: Nourishes in adversity, kindles in the hour of danger, and awakens to deeds of renown. The terrors of persecution only serve to quicken the energy of its purposes. It swells in proud integrity, and, great in the purity of its cause, it can scatter defiance amidst hosts of enemies. [ Dr. Chalmers ]
The repose necessary to all beauty is repose, not of inanition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being; in action, the calmness of trust and determination; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won; and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial and tempest, as beside the waters of comfort. [ Ruskin ]
Throughout the pages of history we are struck with the fact that our remarkable men possessed mothers of uncommon talents for good or bad, and great energy of character; it would almost seem from this circumstance, that the impress of the mother is more frequently stamped on the boy, and that of the father upon the girl - we mean the mental intellectual impress, in distinction from the physical ones. Mothers will do well to remember that their impress is often stamped upon their sons. [ Helen Mar ]
True hope is based on energy of character. A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope, because it knows the mutability of human affairs and how slight a circumstance may change the whole course of events. Such a spirit, too, rests upon itself, it is not confined to partial views, or to one particular object. And if at last all should be lost, it has saved itself, its own integrity and worth. Hope awakens courage, while despondency is the last of all evils, it is the abandonment of good, the giving up of the battle of life with dead nothingness. He who can implant courage in the human soul is the best physician. [ Von Knebel (German), Translated by Mrs. Austin ]