The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes before he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not living.
Arnold BennettRead
Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Start small and be adaptable; acknowledge your limitations and the unpredictability of life.
This quote emphasizes the importance of not overwhelming yourself with ambitions at the beginning of any endeavor. It encourages individuals to be content with modest beginnings, to expect setbacks and recognize that human nature, including our own flaws and tendencies, plays a significant role in our journeys. Patience and self-awareness are essential for sustainable progress and success.
Themes
Start SmallAdaptabilityHuman NaturePatienceSelf-Awareness
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about entrepreneurship, you might say, 'Remember, beware of undertaking too much at the start.'
More from Arnold Bennett
All quotes βThe chances are that you have already come to believe that happiness is unattainable. But men have attained it. And they have attained it by realizing that happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.
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Literature exists so that where one man has lived finely ten thousand may afterward live finely
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Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.
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You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.
Arnold BennettRead
If you imagine that you will be able to achieve your ideal by ingeniously planning out a timetable with a pen on a piece of paper, you had better give up hope at once.If you are not prepared for discouragements and disillusions;_x000D_ if you will not be content with a small result for a big effort, then do not begin. Lie down again and resume the uneasy doze which you call your existence.
Arnold BennettRead
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