Exertion

“ They are promised great events from this year’s exertion. If—disappointed—you have only to persevere and the contest will soon be at an end. The present struggles are like the pangs of a dying man, violent but of a short duration. ”

“ The incentive to exertion which is widest, most constant, and most powerful in its operations in all civilized countries, is the desire of distinction; and this may be composed either of love of fame or love of wealth or of both. ”

“ To do this demanded, patience, abstinence, strict subordination, and a degree of resolution far higher than that required to combat obstacles, however formidable in themselves, where active exertion, which tasks the utmost energies of the soldier, renews his spirits and raises them to a contempt of danger. ”

“ The tremendous exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both brain-workers. ”

“ I mean the labour, when you have run in a race and been beaten, to resign your mind to the fact that you have been beaten, and to bear a kind feeling towards the man who beat you. And this is labour, and hard labour; though very different from that physical exertion which the uncivilized man would understand by the word. Every one can understand that to carry a heavy portmanteau a mile is work. Not every one remembers that the owner of the portmanteau, as he walks on carrying nothing weightier than an umbrella, may be going through exertion much harder than that of the porter. ”

“ This is the case in all trades where immense efforts of bodily power are required. The exertion itself wears out the people, and the dram, which gives a momentary impulse to the exertion, wears them out still more. ”

“ The exertion becomes superhuman. Now a thrust, a vicious bite, and you are the victor. Victor for the moment, for already the next man, who has just finished off one of your mates, is upon you—. You suddenly remember that you have a dagger about you. After a hasty fumbling you find it in the prescribed place. A swift movement and the dagger buries itself deeply in the body of the other man. ”

“ The great chance, also, of being censured, even in those cases where we had laboured most industriously to merit approbation, broke the spring of all generous exertion, and, by teaching us to anticipate blame, as a matter of course, defeated the very purpose of punishment when it fell upon us. ”

“ We place more confidence in a system in which the artisan-soldier will reap the fruits of his labour, than in athletic games, which are not to be neglected, but which become irksome when they are enjoined upon the soldier by regulation. Serious exertion, too, with a useful result, is always more invigorating in the [Pg 335] long run than exertion which leaves no result at all. Work, in short, within reasonable limits, is more healthful than play. ”

“ A leading signification gives us the manual laborer, to whom, in the division of labor, muscular exertion was allotted. As in his exertions the bodily powers are especially employed—such powers as belong to man in common with mere animals—his sphere has generally been considered low and humble. ”

“ Apart from the sense of enterprise, there is an immense gain, in the fact that individual exertion, be it of head or hand, can exercise, free from the trammels of conventional prejudices, which so rule and restrain us at home. If we merely venture to use the pruning-knife in our gardens here, there, we may lay the axe to the root of the oak; and yet, in this commonwealth of labour, the gentleman, if his claim to the title be really well founded, is as certain of maintaining a position of superiority as though he had remained in his own country. ”

“ A great deal depends on the worker, and the experienced jail-bird rises—or, as it was termed to me, “waits for”—the step with little or no exertion. With the novice, however, it is severe labour, and the exertion involved bathes him in perspiration. A supply of warm water is given them on returning to their cells of an evening, to obliterate in a degree the unpleasant consequences of the wheel. ”

“ Every one confesses in the abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive him to do. ”

“ For, as the engines you throw stones or darts with throw them out with the greater force the more they are strained and drawn back; so it is in speaking, running, or boxing—the more people strain themselves, the greater their force. Since, therefore, this exertion has so much influence—if in a moment of pain groans help to strengthen the mind, let us use them; but if they be groans of lamentation, if they be the expression of weakness or abjectness, or unmanly weeping, then I should scarcely call him a man who yielded to them. ”

“ I do not say that to all men has been given physical strength sufficient for such exertion as this, but I do believe that real exertion will enable most men to work at almost any season. I had previously to this arranged a system of task-work for myself, which I would strongly recommend to those who feel as I have felt, that labour, when not made absolutely obligatory by the circumstances of the hour, should never be allowed to become spasmodic. There was no day on which it was my positive duty to write for the publishers, as it was my duty to write reports for the Post Office. ”

“ It distinguishes races and nationalities of human beings, and is illustrated in the differences among the animal tribes; it also varies with general bodily vigor. This activity would burst out and discharge itself in some form of exertion, whether useful or useless, even if the result were perfectly indifferent as regards pleasure or pain. We usually endeavor to turn it to account by giving it a profitable direction, instead of letting it run to waste or something worse. It expends itself in a longer or shorter time, but while any portion remains, exertion is not burdensome. ”

“ With such fearful odds against it, private exertion is lost; it is the concentrated effort of the nation, acknowledged and helped by Government, which alone can rid our dear land of the plague spot which has been creeping on step by step, until none can be blind or deaf, much less, we should hope, careless, to the threatened danger. ”

“ Your children will feel it no misfortune to be impelled to the new and more responsibleresponsible kind of exertion of which their father has kindly given them frequent warning, and for which you have so directed their education as to prepare them. Fanny and I are too well convinced that the greatest happiness is to be found in strenuous exertion on a lofty principle, to repine at any event which makes such exertion necessary, or to dread the discipline which must, I suppose, accompany it. ”

“ I then observed, and I did it with a view to excite exertion, that if there should not be private houses in readiness sufficient for the accommodation of Congress and the persons annexed to the Government, it could not be expected that men should come there to lodge, like cattle, in the fields, and that it highly behoved those interested in the removal to use every exertion to provide accommodations. ”

“ And be assured that I always shall consider myself greatly indebted to you for your kind exertions in my behalf, and it shall be my determination to demean myself in such a manner as to convince you and all my friends that their exertions have not been thrown away. Here I am surrounded by young men from every State in the Union, who are eagerly endeavoring to arrive at distinction, many of whom have determined, and, what is better still, will make every exertion to carry their resolve into effect, to be first in their class. ”

“ The urgent necessity which I think now exists for exertion, in all those who are capable of it among us, has again turned my thoughts to these two considerations. My father's property, and all that we might ever have hoped to derive from it, being utterly destroyed in the unfortunate issue of our affairs, his personal exertions are all that remain to him and us to look to. There are circumstances in which reflections that our minds would not admit at other times of necessity force themselves upon our consideration. ”

“ A common feeling of danger has produced a common spirit of exertion, and we have cheerfully come forward with a surrender of part of our property, not merely for recovering ourselves, but for the general recovery of mankind.—Pitt, Speech of 3rd December 1798. ”

“ While I would not that you depend on any human agency, save your own unyielding exertion, in the elevation of our race; still, I would not have you unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the noble exertions of those kind white friends, who have plead the cause of the bondman, and have done all in their power to aid you, for which, may the God of the oppressed abundantly bless them. ”

“ A task of greater responsibility can hardly be imagined. It will require, on the part of those who stand at the head of government unceasing exertion of their working strength and endurance, mental as well as physical, and it is of the utmost importance not only to themselves, but to the American people generally, that they should have at least a fair chance for such exertion. ”

“ In point of fact, there is an evident, palpable alteration of feature in every man, at the commencement of a battle; as it rages, this marked difference in the lineaments of the countenance disappears, and the excitement of exertion soon produces the usual effect of renewed animation, with a spirit of recklessness indifferent to the consequences of existing danger. ”

“ You can work at high pressure for a week, but to run at low pressure, uniformly and unwearyingly for a year, is beyond most of you ; and yet this power of sustained continuous exertion is the very first requisite for political success, and if these anticipated checks only teach you this, they will prove not misfortunes but blessings in disguise. ”

“ Great exertions were made to stop the excesses which at such times are to be expected; but the utmost exertions can do little among troops who believe themselves privileged by the occasion to break loose from the restraints of military discipline, and who are not more fearless of death than they are, while in health and strength, of judgment. ”

“ It is by the exertion of force that the pupil will become supple, and not by the abandon so much and so uselessly recommended. A movement at first obtained by great effort, will, after a while, not require so much, for he will then have gained skill, and skill, in this case, is but the result of exertions combined and employed properly. ”

“ For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. ”

“ To this end its powers must be fully and faithfully exerted. As, in lifting at a weight, you do but throw away your labor, until you man yourself to the exertion of the full measure of strength necessary to raise it ”

“ That cause requires the exertion, not the suppression, of our noblest powers. But402 here we are called on to degrade and unman ourselves, and to withhold from our fellow-men that influence which we ought to exercise for their good. ”

“ An unwearied application, which commenced in the dawn and failed not till the very extinction of the last gleam of life, gave constancy and energy to the exertion of faculties far exceeding such as are entrusted to the majority. ”

“ Leaving all to individual exertion, it perhaps often leaves too much; since there are matters in which individual exertion has an insufficient interest, while there are others which it is unable to accomplish without unjustifiable sacrifices. We do not desire the perpetual, nor even the frequent interference of Government, that is most certain ”

“ On the combinations of march, and on their execution by the component parts of the body, does the success of every military operation or enterprize depend. To fulfil the intentions of the chief every concurrent exertion of the subordinate officer is required, and the best calculated dispositions, founded on local knowlege, must fail, if there is a want of that punctuality of execution which every general must trust to, and has a right to expect from the leaders of his columns. ”

“ To compare society with a boat - her progress through the water will depend not upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force required for bailing, or any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves, or in pulling in different directions. ”

“ But to these must be added another set of an entirely distinct character—that is to say, the conditions which, the motive to exertion being given, shall render exertion of the kind required possible for the largest number who happen to be theoretically capable of it. Now modern democratic thinkers have supplied the world with a formula by which, in their judgment, these conditions are sufficiently indicated. ”

“ Whatever they do is done as if salvation depended upon it, and the exertion demanded where manual labor takes the place of steam or horse power is so bitterly hard that it makes their continuous application the more wonderful. ”

“ To risk contact with a ghost or a robber or savage beasts would add much more to his exertion mental and physical, than a walk of three miles for the satisfaction of a desire that might be satisfied by a walk of one. The statement that men seek to satisfy their desires with least exertion is to be read with the interpretation that they do so with the least known and the least dreaded exertion ”

“ Those which were to be benefited have complied with the requisitions; others have totally disregarded them. Have not all of us been witnesses to the unhappy embarrassments which resulted from these proceedings? Even during the late war, while the pressure of common danger connected strongly the bond of our union, and incited to vigorous exertion, we have felt many distressing effects of the important system. ”