“I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

“There has never yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.”

“Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure.”

“Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat.”

“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of effort, labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not the the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”