He might as well plant an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!

People who do their duty are always finally rewarded.

I can't rest now, Nelly, although I'm so tired. You may as well tell a man who's struggling through the sea to rest within an arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations tob e induced to rise, but immediately shines and is saluted by all, so do you also not wait for clappings of hands and shouts of praise tob e induced to do good, but be a doer of good voluntarily and you will be beloved as much as the sun.

Whatever your mission, stick by it as if it were a law and you would be committing sacrilege to betray it. Pay no attention to whatever people might say; this no longer should influence you.

So decide now that you are worthy of living as a full-grown man who is making progress, and make everything that seems best be a law that you cannot go against. And if you meet with any hardship or anything pleasant or reputable or disreputable, then remember that the contest is now and the Olympic games are now and you cannot put things off any more and that your progress is made or destroyed by a single day and a single action

No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

I started training with school friends and, one by one, they all dropped out. When we became teenagers, it seemed more exciting to go shopping at weekends. My mum told me not to worry about what my friends were doing and to stick at it.

When I got into the sport I was so fat that my manager said he should send me to boot camp to lose the weight!