Diligence

Famous quotes containing the word diligence:

“What makes this Generation of Vermin so very Prolifick, is the indefatigable Diligence with which they apply themselves to their Business. A Man does not undergo more watchings and fatigues in a Campaign, than in the Course of a vicious Amour. As it is said of some Men, that they make their Business their Pleasure, these Sons of Darkness may be said to make their Pleasure their Business. They might conquer their corrupt Inclinations with half the Pains they are at in gratifying them.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)

“Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices it—an endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)

“Keep your own secret, and get out other people’s. Keep your own temper, and artfully warm other people’s. Counterwork your rivals with diligence and dexterity, but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them: and be firm without heat.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)