Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction
Interpretation
We possess untapped strength and resilience that can be discovered by pushing past our limits.
William James suggests that beyond our perceived limits of fatigue and distress lies a reservoir of strength and ease that we often overlook. By challenging ourselves and pushing through obstacles, we can unlock abilities we didn't know we had, highlighting the importance of perseverance and self-discovery in the pursuit of personal growth.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-improvement.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
when you stumble, keep faith. And when you're knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't go on.
I see no reason that a golf course cannot be played in 18 birdies. Just because no one has ever done that doesn't mean it can't be done.
Decide to be your best. In the long run the world is going to want and have the best and that might as well be you.
Wrestling is the only sport I've ever competed in that puts you totally in a situation of constant motion without breaks. I could play football or baseball, swim -- but there's always some kind of situation that would break my thoughts, break my concentration.
A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.
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