“I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere, — for I have had a little experience in that business, — that there is a desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country, — and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.”

— Henry David Thoreau , book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)

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Henry David Thoreau 385

1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862

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“I have for me only an ideal of truth and justice. But I am quite calm; I shall conquer. I was determined that my country should not remain the victim of lies and injustice. I may be condemned here. The day will come when France will thank me for having helped to save her honor.”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

Appeal for Dreyfus delivered at his trial for libel (22 February 1898).
Context: Dreyfus is innocent. I swear it! I stake my life on it — my honor! At this solemn moment, in the presence of this tribunal which is the representative of human justice, before you, gentlemen of the jury, who are the very incarnation of the country, before the whole of France, before the whole world, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By my forty years of work, by the authority that this toil may have given me, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. By all I have now, by the name I have made for myself, by my works which have helped for the expansion of French literature, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. May all that melt away, may my works perish if Dreyfus be not innocent! He is innocent. All seems against me — the two Chambers, the civil authority, the military authority, the most widely-circulated journals, the public opinion which they have poisoned. And I have for me only an ideal of truth and justice. But I am quite calm; I shall conquer. I was determined that my country should not remain the victim of lies and injustice. I may be condemned here. The day will come when France will thank me for having helped to save her honor.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Thoughts in Solitude (1956)

“I don't blame you for this and I don't think there's anything you could have done to stop it. I am what I am, which is an Alcoholic and a Drug Addict and a Criminal, and I am whats I am because I made myself so. You did the best you could with me, and you loved me the best you could, and that's all I could have ever asked for from you. I have no excuses for what I've done or for who I am or for what I put you though all these years.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

page 251
A Million Little Pieces (2003)

“God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right even though I think it is hopeless.”

Chester W. Nimitz (1885–1966) United States Navy fleet admiral

Appended to a variant of the Serenity Prayer in The Armed Forces Prayer Book (1951)

“The greatest challenge I think is adjusting to not playing baseball. The reason for that is that I had to come out of baseball and come into the business world, not being a college graduate, not being educated to come into the business world the way I should have. And, instead of people doing things for me, I had to do things for myself. That was scary for me.”

Willie Mays (1931) Baseball player

Academy of Achievement Interview (1996)

“I intended to have set out for camp to-morrow, but I believe I shall not be ready until Monday in the forenoon. I have desired Congress to give me leave to resign, as I apprehended a loss of reputation, if I continued in the business. They are not disposed to grant my request at all. But unless they change their system, or publish their approbation upon the present, I shall not remain long in the business. I will not sacrifice my reputation for any consideration whatever. I am willing to serve the public; but I think I have a right to choose that way of performing the service which will be most honorable to myself. I should be willing to serve in the department I am in for a proper consideration, if I could serve without the loss of reputation; but not without.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (24 April 1779)

“I never stopped loving you,
even though you hurt me so deeply.
What is it I see?
I can hear the siren calling me closer
and I approach.
I look ahead when I feel a tear drop into the ocean around me.
It was then that I realized my ego
had fooled me to think that I was the principal.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself — that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny shall have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life — life will be wrested from me.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss
Context: I will not say that the more or less poetical and unphilosophical doctrines that I am about to set forth are those which make me live; but I will venture to say that it is my longing to live and to live for ever that inspires these doctrines within me. And if by means of them I succeed in strengthening and sustaining this same longing in another, perhaps when it is all but dead, then I shall have performed a man's work, and above all, I shall have lived. In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself — that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny shall have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life — life will be wrested from me.

“On the plane home I remember thinking that I am who I am because I have faith in myself, and it has always been the possibility of emotionally rewarding the experiences that has encouraged me to gamble on myself; those experiences have made all that I do worthwhile.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

“When last comes to last,
I have little power:
I am merely an urn. I hold the bone-sap of myself,
and watch the marrow burn.
When last comes to last,
I have little strength:
I am only a tool. I work its work; and in its hands
I am the fool.
When last comes to last,
I have little life.
I am simply a deed: an action done while courage holds:
a seed.”

Stephen R. Donaldson book The Power that Preserves

Healer, The Power that Preserves, the third book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever

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Henry David Thoreau 385

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