Ralph Waldo Emerson said in 1844, “America is the country of the future. It is a country of beginnings, of projects, of vast designs and expectations.” Whether or not this description still holds today, this spirit of boundless optimism and visionary fervor still shapes our national identity and influences our attitudes about work and self-fulfillment.
Americans have always prided themselves on idealism and hard work. After all there’s nothing more American than the idea of the self-made man or woman. To put you in a patriotic mood this Fourth of July, we’ve gathered quotes by some truly great Americans on quintessential American characteristics.
Hard Work
“Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.”
– Henry Ford
“The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”
– John D. Rockefeller
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
– Thomas Edison
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Confidence
“The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in the mind.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Risk-Taking
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
– Albert Einstein
“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true were really true, there would be little hope of advance.”
– Orville Wright
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Be bold. If you’re going to make an error, make a doozey, and don’t be afraid to hit the ball.”
– Billie Jean King
Persistence
“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
– Christopher Reeve
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”
– Helen Keller
Vision
“Dwell in possibility.”
– Emily Dickinson
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”
– Gloria Steinem
“If you can DREAM it, you can DO it.”
– Walt Disney
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
– Albert Einstein
