Growth quotes, with sources

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.

He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Thou shalt become what thou art.

Sweet are the uses of adversity.

Never by thinking, but by doing.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Character is higher than intellect.

By doing just actions we come to be just.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

Forgiveness is love towards the unlovely.

Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.

Freedom cannot be bestowed — it must be achieved.

The mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

We turn not older with years, but newer every day.

Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?

An acorn develops, but a quartz pebble only changes.

It is only when you are pursued that you become swift.

In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is filled.

It is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring.

The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout.

Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

Small beginnings seem to be the rule in all provinces of life.

The person you are matters more than the place to which you go.

Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another.

In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn.

The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.

The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.

I am not concerned that I am not known, I seek to be worthy to be known.

Character is not cut in marble—it is not something solid and unalterable.

I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it.

To absorb a thing is better than to learn it, and we absorb what we enjoy.

Nothing great is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is.

There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others.

Fletchers bend the arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood; wise people fashion themselves.

People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.

The Child is father of the Man.

Till this moment, I never knew myself.

We live to improve, or we live in vain.

Whatever is well said by anyone is mine.

In this life we get nothing save by effort.

One may leap to heaven from the very slums.

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

The way of progress is neither swift nor easy.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

We will not be content till our very anger is love.

I have no more made my book than my book has made me.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.

Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts.

One need only grow old to become gentler in one’s judgments.

Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good.

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world.

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.

Those faults are always pardonable that we have the courage to avow.

And verily the latter portion will be better for thee than the former.

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.

Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.

Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth.

He is a poor disciple who does not excel his master.

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

Even trees must be shaken by the wind, if they are to thrive.

I study myself more than any other subject.

Only evil grows of itself, while for goodness we want effort and courage.

When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them.

Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.

One does not become holy all at once.