Firmness Quotes

• Firmness of purpose is one of the best instruments of success.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Success, Mazes, Purpose

  22 Copy quote

• Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Funny, Sarcastic, Yield

  Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.157

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• When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Commitment, Power, Politics

  8 Copy quote

• Wisdom teaches us to do, as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a colour.

  Seneca the Younger

  Inspirational, Our Words, Action

  9 Copy quote

• Lord, give me firmness without hardness, steadfastness without dogmatism, love without weakness.

  Jim Elliot

  Giving, Weakness, Lord

  116 Copy quote

• Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Success, Character, Effort

  19 Copy quote

• Many a man has failed because he had his wishbone where his backbone should have been.

  Ronald Reagan

  Men, Should Have, Backbone

  68 Copy quote

• The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Literature, Mercy

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated)”, p.1324, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

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• Cowards are scared with threatenings; boys are whipped into confession; but a steady mind acts of itself, ne'er asks the body counsel.

  Thomas Otway

  Boys, Mind, Coward

  Lynette Feasey, John Milton, Thomas Otway, William Congreve (1951). “And so to the playhouse”

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• It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in general, only a weak character, which easily changes into asperity.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Determination, Real, Character

  53 Copy quote

• Steadfastness is a noble quality, but unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy.

  Aaron Swartz

  Humility, Understanding, Quality

  35 Copy quote

• Firmness in enduring and exertion is a character I always wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and cowardly resolve.

  Robert Burns

  Determination, Character, Adversity

  32 Copy quote

• A wise man who stands firm is a statesman, a foolish man who stands firm is a catastrophe.

  Adlai Stevenson I

  Wise, Educational, Men

  9 Copy quote

• It is only dislocated minds whose movements are spasmodic.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Mind, Movement

  7 Copy quote

• Well building hat three conditions. Commodity, firmness, and delight.

  Henry Wotton

  Hate, Hats, Three

  8 Copy quote

• Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.

  Samuel Johnson

  Successful, Moderation, Firm

  Samuel Johnson (1804). “The beauties of Samuel Johnson: maxims and observations. To which are now added, biographical anecdotes of the doctor, his life [&c.].”, p.284

  7 Copy quote

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• The male - I have found - is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things.

  Jilly Cooper

  Marriage, Kindness, Women

  "Men and Supermen". Book by Jilly Cooper, 1972.

  48 Copy quote

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• With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Military, Giving, Civil War

  Second Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1865

  13 Copy quote

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• Care for him who shall have borne the battle

  Abraham Lincoln

  Widows And Orphans, Civil War, Battle

  Second Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1865

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• The grave, dread thing! Men shiver when thou'rt named: Nature appalled, Shakes off her wonted firmness.

  Robert Blair

  Fear, Men, Graves

  Robert Blair (1826). “Sacred poems: comprising The grave, by R. Blair: The last day, by E. Young: Death, by bishop Porteus: and some minor pieces. With memoirs and notes by S. Drew”, p.9

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• The door of conciliation and compromise is finally closed by our adversaries, and it remains only to us to meet the conflict with the dignity and firmness of men worthy of freedom.

  Robert Toombs

  Men, Doors, Dignity

  8 Copy quote

• Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth if th' other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Suth wilt thou be to me, who must Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I began.

  John Donne

  Running, Moving, Home

  c.1595-1605 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

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• That profound firmness which enabler a man to regard difficulties but as evils to be surmounted, no matter what shape they may assume.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Evil, Profound

  7 Copy quote

• There is a natural firmness in some minds, which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude.

  Thomas Paine

  Mind, Cabinets, Fortitude

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.14

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• The best combination of parents consists of a father who is gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who is firm beneath her gentleness.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Mother, Father, Parent

  Sydney J. Harris (1964). “Leaving the Surface”

  17 Copy quote

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