Endurance

The great charm and comfort of the system is, that its affects are palpable within a week of trial, which creates a natural stimulus to persevere for few weeks more, when the fact becomes established beyond question.
~ William Banting, Letter On Corpulence, Addressed to the Public. Fourth Edition (1869).

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
~ William Barclay

For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.
~ William Cullen Bryant, The Battle-Field

The last dejected effort often becomes the winning stroke!
~ William John ("W.J.") Cameron

I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.
~ William Carey, Quoted in The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker and Missionary (1885). Preface

There are grave difficulties on every hand, and more are looming ahead. Therefore we must go forward.
~ William Carey

When we suffer, 'tis to bless
Other moments with success;
From our losses, we may trace
Something better in their place.
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, from Rhymes Of Our Planet (1895). Fight It Out

Love lasteth as long as the money endureth.
~ William Caxton, Caxton's Game and Playe of the Chesse (1474).

These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife.
~ William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700).

Everything here but the soul of man is a passing shadow. The only enduring substance is within. When shall we awake to the sublime greatness, the perils, the accountableness, and the glorious destinies of the immortal soul?
~ William Ellery Channing, from The Complete Works of William Ellery Channing (1884). The True End of Life

Lines of least resistance make crooked rivers and crooked men.
~ William H. Danforth

There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
~ William Faulkner (accepting 1949 Nobel Prize in Stockholm, 10 December 1950), Quoted in Random House (1965). Essays, Speeches and Public Lectures

The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars, to help him endure and prevail.
~ William Faulkner (accepting 1949 Nobel Prize in Stockholm, 10 December 1950), Quoted in Random House (1965). Essays, Speeches and Public Lectures

In spite of myself, the creator would not allow me to give up, and in spite of myself, I persevered.
~ Joe Gillam

Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
~ William Godwin

I've worked like hell, worked others like hell, have got drunk and got others drunk, lost all I had, and now because I won't spend or lend what little I earn, beg, borrow, or steal, I've been cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked to, talked about, lied to, lied about, worked over, pushed under, robbed, and damn near ruined. The only reason I'm sticking around now is to see WHAT THE HELL IS NEXT.
~ William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982).

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
~ William James

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
~ William James, in Nation 17 (1873). Vacations

Champions keep playing until they get it right.
~ Billie Jean King

I guess if I am not breathing anymore, I'll give up.
~ William M. Kuhne, The Associated Press (24 November 2001). Fight Over VA Hospital Continues

The fatigue of body and mind has almost unnerved this old frame, and unfitted me to endure the burdens which Providence calls upon me to bear. I find as I grow old I grow more peevish and cannot bear so much contradiction, therefore I am called uncharitable and severe. No matter -- this frail life will soon be over.
~ William Miller, Letter to Elder Joshua V. Himes (7 December 1842)

However desperate the chance for survival may be, the chance for collective survival in the sense of an endless material continuance of its race and its culture is more desperate by far.
~ William Pepperell (W.P.) Montague, The Way of Things (1940).

He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1888). Maxims and Arrows

It is not strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

When a man is in love he endures more than at other times; he submits to everything.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1888).

I ran and ran and ran every day, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened.
~ Wilma Rudolph

Any relations in a social order will endure, if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality.
~ George William (A.E.) Russell, Irish Times (7 October 1913). Open letter to the Masters of Dublin

Determination is key, without it there is no door!
~ William R. Segal

[A] light heart lives long.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost. Act V, scene ii

A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
~ William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

Fight till the last gasp.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part I

Have patience, and endure.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV, scene i

Hold-fast is the only dog, my duck.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V

I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act IV, scene iii

Is most tolerable, and not to be endured.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

I'll not budge an inch.
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Introduction, scene i

Man must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act V, scene ii

O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endured!
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright; to have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail
In monumental mockery.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act III, scene iii

This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act III, scene iii

Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

I never gave up. A few times I didn't think I was going to make it. But I never quit.
~ William Lee (Willie) "The Shoe" Shoemaker

No need for hope to get started, nor for success to persevere. (Point n'est besoin d'espérer pour entreprendre, ni de réussir pour persévérer.)
~ William the Silent

Diamonds are only chunks of coal,
That stuck to their jobs, you see.
~ Minnie Richard Smith, Stick to Your Job (1947)

I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is, why did other people stop?
~ William Stafford

I can endure my own despair,
But not another's hope.
~ William Walsh, in Letters and Poems, Amorous and Gallant (1709). Song

Waste no tears
Upon the blotted record of lost years,
But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, to see
The fair white pages that remain for thee.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Resolve

She was incredible -- nothing stopped her at all. Whenever I felt ill, I always used to remember that in the same circumstances she would battle on, no matter how she felt. She never gave up.
~ Prince William (in press interview at York House), The Associated Press (6 April 2002). Teen Princes Recall Queen Mother

It's necessary to have big dreams and big goals to succeed, but a dreamer without endurance is destined to fail.
~ A.L. Williams, All You Can Do Is All You Can Do, but All You Can Do Is Enough! (1988). Chapter 3. The Secret to Winning

Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss.
~ Doug Williams

The power is in every one of us to do anything we want. What separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, those who make it and those who don't, the ordinary from the extraordinary, is perseverance -- staying in the race. There are no excuses (race, sex, the economy) for not being able to do what you want to do.
~ Terrie Williams, The Personal Touch: What You Really Need to Succeed in Today's Fast-Paced Business World (September 1994).

Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.
~ Theodore Samuel ("Ted") Williams

[L]ife's not easy, it calls for -- Spartan endurance!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene Four

We must make a religion of endurance.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams (letter to Joe Hazen), The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, vol. i, 1920-1945 (2000).

There is a comfort in the strength of love;
'Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would break the heart.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, Vol. 2 (1800). Michael, a Pastoral