Noble Pursuits Quotes

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

Science as an intellectual exercise enriches our culture, and is in itself ennobling.

I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken.

It is the property of a great and good mind to covet, not the fruit of good deeds, but good deeds themselves, and to seek for a good man even after having met with bad men.

The pious and just honoring of ourselves may be thought the fountainhead from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth.

Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.

You have to be doing things that matter - responsibility, but also responsibility with epic and beautiful and noble tasks.

To have greatly dreamed precludes low ends.

In the great undertakings, there is glory, even in failure.

Men were created for something better than merely to make money. A close application to business, until a competence is gained, is one of the chief virtues; but to continue in trade long after this result is obtained, is one of the signs, not to be mistaken, of a sordid and ignoble nature.

If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards.

. . . Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

To be always seeking after the useful does not become free and exalted souls.

All noble enthusiasms pass through a feverish stage, and grow wiser and more serene.

The man who loves his wife above all else on earth gains the freedom and power to pursue other noble, but lesser, loves.

It is evident, then, that there is a sort of education in which parents should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary, but because it is liberal or noble.

The boatmen appeared to lead an easy and contented life, and we thought that we should prefer their employment ourselves to many professions which are much more sought after. They suggested how few circumstances are necessary to the well-being and serenity of man, how indifferent all employments are, and that any may seem noble and poetic to the eyes of men, if pursued with sufficient buoyancy and freedom.

Toil is the true knight's pastime.

For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

The humblest occupation has in it materials of discipline for the highest heaven.

The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest.

If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all noble things are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty of it does not make us faint and cave in, it rouses us up to overcome.

Drop this mean and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up something to do that's got some dignity to it! Risk your souls! Risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care? Reform!

I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively.