Cicero on motivation and goals

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

In the very books in which philosophers bid us scorn fame, they inscribe their names.

Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; the beasts, by nature.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’

Never give in⁠—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech given at Harrow School, Harrow, England, October 29, 1941. Quoted in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, 2008, p. 23