All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.

Most writers flourish greatly on a simple, healthy routine with occasional time off for gaiety.

Proverbs are for the most part rules of moral, or, still more properly, of prudential conduct.

The genius keeps all his days the vividness and intensity of interest that a sensitive child feels in his expanding world.

it is the sum of small things successfully done that lifts a life out of bondage to the humdrum.

Act as if it were impossible to fail.

In the long run it makes little difference how cleverly others are deceived; if we are not doing what we are best equipped to do, or doing well what we have undertaken as our personal contribution to the world's work, at least by way of an earnestly followed avocation, there will be a core of unhappiness in our lives which will be more and more difficult to ignore as the years pass.