Motivation Quotes

Motivation hums just beneath the surface of these words—sometimes a quiet nudge, other times a fierce roar, always the spark that turns hesitation into action. Here, it’s the push to start, the reminder to keep going, and the stubborn belief that effort matters more than perfection.

34,389 QUOTES — PAGE 1037 OF 1,720

“What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you then so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror; because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited; because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species; your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away, and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far, and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat, merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“Already the people murmur that I am your enemybecause they say that in verse I give the world your me.They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos.Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voicebecause you are the dressing and the essence is me;and the most profound abyss is spread between us.You are the cold doll of social lies,and me, the virile starburst of the human truth.You, honey of courtesan hypocrisies; not me;in all my poems I undress my heart.You are like your world, selfish; not mewho gambles everything betting on what I am.You are only the ponderous lady very lady;not me; I am life, strength, woman.You belong to your husband, your master; not me;I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to allI give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought.You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,tied to the prejudices of men; not me;unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinantesnorting horizons of God's justice.You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;your husband, your parents, your family,the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,heaven and hell, and the social, "what will they say."Not in me, in me only my heart governs,only my thought; who governs in me is me.You, flower of aristocracy; and me, flower of the people.You in you have everything and you owe it to everyone,while me, my nothing I owe to nobody.You nailed to the static ancestral dividend,and me, a one in the numerical social divider,we are the duel to death who fatally approaches.When the multitudes run riotingleaving behind ashes of burned injustices,and with the torch of the seven virtues,the multitudes run after the seven sins, against you and against everything unjust and inhuman,I will be in their midst with the torch in my hand.”

Julia de Burgos Jack Agüero Translator

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