In all affairs thou undertakest, a diligent preparation should be made. [ Cicero ]

The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty done. [ George MacDonald ]

No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes the object may be. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

Life is rather a state of embryo, - a preparation for life. A man is not completely born until he has passed through death. [ Franklin ]

To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack. [ Johnson ]

I fancy mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narration; grow weary of preparation and connection and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. [ Dr. Johnson ]

Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties. It would seem that the more important the enterprise, the more severe the trial to which the agent is subjected in his preparation. [ Edward Thomson ]

Don't waste your life in doubts and fears: spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

Providence has clearly ordained that the only path fit and salutary for man on earth is the path of persevering fortitude - the unremitting struggle of deliberate self-preparation and humble but active reliance on divine aid. [ B. L. Magoon ]

Let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time, beyond the needs and conveniences of nature; and sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes when he is coming forth from his chambers of the east. [ Jeremy Taylor ]

The first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, - a general preparation for whatever species of the art the student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The power of drawing, modelling, and using colors is very properly called the language of the art. [ Sir Joshua Reynolds ]

Talk, except as the preparation for work, is worth almost nothing; sometimes it is worth infinitely less than nothing; and becomes, little conscious of playing such a fatal part, the general summary of pretentious nothingnesses, and the chief of all the curses the posterity of Adam are liable to in this sublunary world. [ Carlyle ]