They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.
Interpretation
Persistence in the face of failures is essential for progress.
This quote by Calvin Coolidge emphasizes the importance of perseverance despite experiencing failures or setbacks. It suggests that allowing discouragement from perceived failures can hinder one's ability to make progress, highlighting that resilience is crucial for achieving success.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.
It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.
Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.
The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.
I will either find a way or make one.
Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.
Nothing great ever happened without enthusiasm.
The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters.
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.
My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way.
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