"Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action."

Smiles, Samuel on enthusiasm
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"Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence."

Arendt, Hannah on prediction   

"Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise."

Arendt, Hannah on loyalty   

"We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their abundance."

Arendt, Hannah on excess   

"The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the easy life of the gods would be a lifeless life."

Arendt, Hannah on effort   

"The fact is that we all seem capable of living, because at some time or other we have taken refuge in a lie, in blindness, in enthusiasm, in optimism, in some conviction, in pessimism or something of the sort. He has never taken refuge in anything. He is absolutely incapable of lying. He has nothing to take refuge in, no shelter. It's as if he were naked and everyone else had clothes on."

Jesenska, Milena on ignorance   

"It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth."

Balfour, Arthur James on truth   

"General jackdaw culture, very little more than a collection of charming miscomprehensions, untargeted enthusiasms, and a general habit of skimming."

Bolitho, William on culture   

"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

Churchill, Winston on success
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"Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless."

Arendt, Hannah on action