12 quotes with a known source.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
The journey of a thousand li commences with a single step.
A li is about half a kilometre — "a thousand miles" is a later rounding.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
The best is the enemy of the good.
Dripping water hollows out stone.
Fortune favours the bold.
It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
He was quoting the farewell message on the back cover of the final Whole Earth Catalog (1974).
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
Quotes about success that are usually credited to the wrong person.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Actually: No record of Gandhi saying it. A close version appears in a 1918 speech by US union organiser Nicholas Klein.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Actually: Not in Seneca's works. The modern wording dates from the 20th century.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Actually: Will Durant summarising Aristotle in The Story of Philosophy (1926).
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
The trail: No matching passage in the Analects.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.
The real words: Poster version of Walden's Conclusion: "if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Actually: Quote Investigator found the earliest close version in a 1938 Budweiser advertisement.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Actually: The Churchill Project lists it among things he never said.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.
The real words: Condensed from The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, ch. 31: talent is like a marksman who hits a target others cannot reach; genius hits one they cannot even see.
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
The real words: A later paraphrase. In Alice (ch. 6) the Cheshire Cat says that if you don't much care where you get to, "then it doesn't matter which way you go."
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
Actually: No source in Stevenson's works has been found; it appears under his name only in modern collections.
It always seems impossible until it's done.
Actually: No source has been found in Mandela's speeches, letters or books.
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
The real words: A modern version. His biographers Dyer and Martin (1910) report him saying: "Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won't work."
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't — you're right.
The trail: Credited to Ford from 1947 onwards, without an original source.
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
Actually: Associated with motivational speaker Les Brown; not found in Lewis's works.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Actually: Not found in Saint-Exupéry's books; a modern business slogan.