None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction - a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the muse.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Strive for excellence in your work so that it brings you satisfaction and pride.
This quote by Henry David Thoreau emphasizes the importance of commitment and diligence in one's work. It suggests that one should approach their tasks with sincerity and care, ensuring that they feel a sense of pride and fulfillment in what they have accomplished, even to the point of reflecting on it during moments of rest.
Themes
WorkPrideSatisfactionCommitmentExcellence
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech discussing work ethics.
More from Henry David Thoreau
All quotes →Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
Henry David ThoreauRead
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.
Henry David ThoreauRead
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.
Henry David ThoreauRead
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David ThoreauRead
Similar quotes
It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.
Pema ChodronRead
When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.
Nhat HanhRead
The mark of a master is to select only a few moments, but give us a lifetime.
Robert MckeeRead
Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.
Sun TzuRead
Who can calculate the wounds inflicted, their depth and pain, by harsh and mean words spoken in anger? How pitiful a sight is a man who is strong in many ways but who loses all control of himself when some little thing, usually of no significant consequence, disturbs his equanimity.
Gordon B. HinckleyRead
January is always a good month for behavioral economics: Few things illustrate self-control as vividly as New Year's resolutions. February is even better, though, because it lets us study why so many of those resolutions are broken.
Sendhil MullainathanRead