Success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion, and cannot be achieved except by a dint of hard work.

But the general welfare must restrict and regulate the exertions of the individuals, as the individuals must derive a supply of their strength from social power.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power.

Everywhere bourgeois society insists on the exertion of will; only love is supposed to be involuntary, pure immediacy of feeling. In its longing for this, which means a dispensation from work, the bourgeois idea of love transcends bourgeois society.

The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth.

The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud.

Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.

The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectability is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.

I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of God. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the Godly must claim-so modestly and so humbly-to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.

Success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion and cannot be achieved except by a dint of hard work.

But the general welfare must restrict and regulate the exertions of the individuals as the individuals must derive a supply of their strength from social power.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions but by his habitual acts.

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight nothing which is more important than his own personal safety is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

Many possessions if they do not make a man better are at least expected to make his children happier and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.

It is bad policy to regulate everything... where things may better regulate themselves and can be better promoted by private exertions but it is no less bad policy to let those things alone which can only be promoted by interfering social power.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise than he was 6000 years ago.

But my most favourite pursuit after my daily exertions at the Foundry was Astronomy. There were frequently clear nights when the glorious objects in the Heavens were seen in most attractive beauty and brilliancy.