As quoted in The Christian Leader, Vol. 37, Issue 7 (17 February 1934)
Said at Keswick, as quoted in The Education Outlook (1926) Vol. 78
“That’s the whole secret: to do things that excite you.”
The Paris Review interview (2010)
Context: I write all the time. I get up every morning not knowing what I’m going to do. I usually have a perception around dawn when I wake up. I have what I call the theater of morning inside my head, all these voices talking to me. When they come up with a good metaphor, then I jump out of bed and trap them before they’re gone. That’s the whole secret: to do things that excite you.
“The secret to success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”
Bennis Warren and Burt Nanus (1985) Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. Harper and Row. p. 21
1980s
“These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things.”
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Ground Book
Context: These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things. When you attain the Way of strategy there will not be one thing you cannot see. You must study hard.
Life of Marcus Cato
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 14
Context: One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. … All you need to do is to be curious, receptive, eager for experience. And there's one strange thing: when you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.
