Great joy is only earned by great exertion. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Nothing is impossible to perseverance and exertion. [ Mrs. Opie ]

Fortitude, justice, and candor are very necessary instruments of happiness, but they require time and exertion. [ Sydney Smith ]

How many languish in obscurity, who would become great if emulation and encouragement incited them to exertion! [ Fenelon ]

A woman is seldom roused to great and courageous exertion but when something most dear to her is in immediate danger. [ Joanna Baillie ]

That single effort by which we stop short in the down-hill path to perdition is of itself a greater exertion of virtue than a hundred acts of justice. [ Goldsmith ]

Firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character I would wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and the cowardly feeble resolve. [ Burns ]

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper place, than to expend both indiscriminately. [ Ruskin ]

What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of strength requisite for accomplishing particular objects; a mere notice of the necessity for exertion; a bugbear to children and fools; only a mere stimulus to men. [ Samuel Warren ]