Virtue index · Classical virtue
Industry (diligence)
Diligence: steady, willing work at one’s calling, done well and offered to God.
Definitions from the tradition
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.7; II.1: The good for man is found in his proper activity done excellently; virtues of character come by practice, as builders become builders by building.
Benedict, Rule of St. Benedict, ch. 48: Idleness is the enemy of the soul; the brothers are to be occupied at fixed times in manual labor and at fixed times in sacred reading.
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 35: Acedia (sloth) is sorrow about spiritual good; it is opposed to the joy of charity and gives rise to idleness and restlessness of mind.
Scripture, Proverbs 6:6 (KJV): “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise”
Scripture, Colossians 3:23 (KJV): “whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord”
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version as given in the library’s text. Other definitions are summarized, not quoted.
Opposing vices
- Sloth: Sorrow at spiritual good and neglect of duty; laziness.
- Idleness: Wasting time and gifts.
Works that show industry (146)
Theogony and Works and DaysHesiodHesiod urges Perses to fill his barns by working in the right season instead of loitering at the court-house. Opposing vice: Sloth.c. 700 BCPericles' Funeral OrationPericlesAthenians, he says, find disgrace not in poverty but in declining the struggle against it.delivered 431 BC; recorded by Thucydides c. 431-400 BCPosterior Analytics and PhysicsAristotleThe Physics works through earlier theories, Zeno's paradoxes and the problems of place, void and time one by one before drawing its conclusions.4th century BCEElements, Book IEuclidCasey's exercises after Propositions 1, 5 and 47 ask the pupil to work out new proofs for himself once he has mastered the book.c. 300 BCEThe Method (Geometrical Solutions Derived from Mechanics)ArchimedesHeiberg's painstaking reading of the faded writing beneath the prayer book recovered the whole treatise for later readers.c. 250 BCECatiline's War and The Jugurthine WarSallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus)Metellus restores the slack army in Africa by daily marching, fortified camps and strict discipline before he risks battle.c. 42-40 BCThe Age of Alexander: Nine Greek LivesPlutarchPlutarch tells how Demosthenes trained his weak voice by disciplined practice.c. 100 CEAlmagestClaudius PtolemyPtolemy assembles and dates observations across nearly nine centuries and turns them into tables usable for any date.c. 150 CEThe Rule of St BenedictBenedict of NursiaBenedict orders the day around prayer, manual labor, and sacred reading, calling idleness the enemy of the soul. Opposing vice: Idleness.c. 530 CEThe Institutes of JustinianJustinian I (Tribonian and commissioners)The proem describes the compilers completing the Digest and Institutes like sailors crossing mid-ocean, a labour Justinian says he had once despaired of.533 CECædmon's HymnCædmonAfter his dream he ponders each passage he is taught and works the whole biblical story, from Genesis to the Judgment, into verse.c. 658-680Ecclesiastical History of the English PeopleBedeBede describes a life spent in study, teaching and writing amid the daily round of monastic worship.731Two Lives of CharlemagneEinhard and Notker the StammererEinhard records Charlemagne’s efforts to learn to read and write late in life and his promotion of schools.c. 830 / c. 885A Treatise on the Smallpox and MeaslesAbu Bakr al-Razi (Rhazes)He questions readers of Syriac and Greek and searches Galen book by book before writing his own account of the cause.c. 910ChronographiaMichael PsellosBasil II spends his reign on campaign and in administration, refusing luxury and leaving a full treasury.c. 1078The AlexiadAnna KomneneAlexios sits through Frankish audiences from evening until past midnight, outlasting all his exhausted courtiers.c. 1148The MuqaddimahIbn KhaldunChapter 5 argues that gain is the value of human labour and that crafts flourish where work is rewarded.1377Gargantua and PantagruelFrançois RabelaisUnder Ponocrates, Gargantua spends every hour from early morning to night in reading, observation, exercise and conversation.1532-1564On the Fabric of the Human Body (Preface)Andreas VesaliusHe describes putting his own hands to the dissection that university professors had left to barbers.1543On the Revolutions of the Heavenly SpheresNicolaus CopernicusBooks II to VI work out the motions of sun, moon and planets with new tables and a star catalogue, the product of decades of observation and calculation.1543Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Volume 1)Giorgio VasariThe boy Giotto draws on stones, ground and sand while keeping his father's sheep, before anyone has taught him.1550; 2nd ed. 1568The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniBenvenuto CelliniHe builds his own furnace and labours through fever to cast the Perseus, feeding the fire and the channels with his own hands.1558-1563On the Magnet (De Magnete)William GilbertGilbert reports only experiments 'many times performed and repeated', the fruit of years of labour, vigils and expense.1600Galileo: The Starry Messenger, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, and Two New Sciences (First Day)Galileo GalileiGalileo observed Jupiter night after night for two months, recording each configuration before drawing his conclusion about its moons.1610-1638The TempestWilliam ShakespeareFerdinand carries thousands of logs without complaint for Miranda's sake.c. 1610-11 (First Folio 1623)The Anatomy of MelancholyRobert BurtonBurton prescribes business and occupation against melancholy: be not solitary, be not idle. Opposing vice: Idleness.1621On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals (De Motu Cordis)William HarveyHarvey confirmed his views by repeated demonstrations before the College for more than nine years and studied the hearts of many kinds of animals before publishing.1628The Sceptical ChymistRobert BoyleThe argument rests on years of furnace work, including plants Boyle raised in water and weighed before distilling them.1661Treatise on LightChristiaan HuygensHe measures the refractions of Iceland crystal with great exactness and tests his hypothesis on many differently cut sections before explaining them.1690The Practice of the Presence of GodBrother LawrenceHe works fifteen years in the friary kitchen, doing each task in its season with prayer and composure.1692OpticksIsaac NewtonBook II records painstaking measurements of the rings between lenses and plates, repeated and tabulated to fractions of an inch.1704Robinson CrusoeDaniel DefoeIsland survival depends on patient skilled work day after day. Opposing vice: Sloth.1719Autobiography and Poor Richard's AlmanackBenjamin FranklinFranklin’s list of thirteen virtues includes industry and frugality, and Poor Richard’s maxims praise diligence. Opposing vice: Idleness.1732-1790Elegy Written in a Country ChurchyardThomas GrayGray honours the villagers' harvests, furrows and sturdy strokes of the axe as useful toil not to be mocked.1751The Wealth of NationsAdam SmithThe pin factory and the account of parsimony in Book II make diligent, well-directed labour and saving the sources of national wealth.1776Essays on Education in a RepublicBenjamin RushHe would turn school amusements into gardening, farming and the mechanical arts so that play prepares children for useful work.1786-1798A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of AmericaJohn AdamsWritten in the intervals of diplomatic work, the first volume gathers the histories of more than forty republics.1787-1788Elements of ChemistryAntoine LavoisierHe keeps mercury heated in a closed vessel of air for twelve days and accounts for every change in weight and volume.1789The Natural History of SelborneGilbert WhiteHe kept dated records of weather and creatures at Selborne for over forty years.1789Hamilton's Reports and Opinion on the BankAlexander HamiltonThe Report on Manufactures praises the multiplying of enterprises so that every kind of talent and labour in the nation can find productive work.1790-1791The Life of Samuel JohnsonJames BoswellJohnson compiles the Dictionary over years of poverty with a handful of copyists and no patron's help.1791A Vindication of the Rights of WomanMary WollstonecraftChapter 9 proposes that women study medicine, practise midwifery and manage farms and shops.1792Household Stories (Grimm's Fairy Tales)Jacob and Wilhelm GrimmThe diligent daughter in Mother Hulda shakes the feather bed so the snow flies and is rewarded with a shower of gold.1812–1857The Swiss Family RobinsonJohann David WyssThe family turns a wreck and a wilderness into a farm, a tree house and a cliff dwelling by years of steady, planned labor.1812The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.Washington IrvingRip will help any neighbor but neglects his own farm, and his twenty-year sleep turns that idleness into a fable.1819-1820Philosophy of RightG. W. F. HegelThe system of needs in the civic community treats labour and skill as the way individuals gain both their livelihood and their recognized place in society.1820Principles of GeologyCharles LyellLyell built his case from years of fieldwork, including his 1828 visit to measure the borings on the columns at Pozzuoli.1830-1833Charles River Bridge v. Warren BridgeSupreme Court of the United StatesThe proprietors built and maintained the first bridge across the Charles, and the Warren Bridge builders undertook theirs on the promise of recovering their costs from tolls.1837Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1Michael FaradayFaraday ran thousands of trials over seven years, recording each in numbered paragraphs.1839Essays: First Series (Self-Reliance and Other Essays)Ralph Waldo EmersonSelf-Reliance teaches that no kernel of nourishing corn comes except through toil on the plot of ground given to each person.1841A System of Logic, Book III: Of InductionJohn Stuart MillMill revised the work through eight editions over three decades, adding examples and replies to critics.1843Narrative of the Life and What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?Frederick DouglassDouglass teaches himself to read and write against prohibition.1845 / 1852David CopperfieldCharles DickensDavid rises by hard work as a reporter and writer after his early hardships.1849–1850KalevalaElias Lönnrot (compiler)Ilmarinen works his forge for days, breaking every flawed creation, until the Sampo rises from the fire.1835; enlarged 1849VilletteCharlotte BrontëDuring M. Paul's absence Lucy works her little day-school into a prospering pensionnat.1853WaldenHenry David ThoreauHe hews his own timbers, digs his cellar, and hoes two and a half acres of beans, recording every hour and penny of his labor in "Economy" and "The Bean-Field."1854The Song of HiawathaHenry Wadsworth LongfellowHe builds the canoe, invents picture-writing and teaches the art of healing for the use of all.1855Germ Theory Papers (Pasteur and Lister)Louis Pasteur and Joseph ListerPasteur grows the anthrax organism through twelve successive cultures before claiming proof that it causes the disease.1857-1880Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many LandsMary SeacoleShe builds and runs the British Hotel at Spring Hill despite floods, rats and thieves, cooking and nursing from dawn.1857The Huxley-Wilberforce DebateThomas Henry Huxley and Samuel WilberforceWilberforce prepared a long, detailed review of the Origin for the Quarterly Review, engaging Darwin's evidence chapter by chapter.1860Considerations on Representative GovernmentJohn Stuart MillChapter III praises the active, self-helping character that strives to improve its circumstances over the passive one that accepts them.1861Great ExpectationsCharles DickensAfter losing his fortune Pip works for years as a clerk and then partner in Herbert's firm and pays his way.1860-61Silas MarnerGeorge EliotSilas's steady labor at his loom supports Eppie, and Aaron's gardening makes their home pleasant.1861The Chemical History of a CandleMichael FaradayFaraday urges his young listeners to ask 'What is the cause?' of every new result and to keep at it until in time they find the reason.1861An Introduction to the Study of Experimental MedicineClaude BernardHe describes the science of life as reached only through long labour in the laboratory, and narrates years of experiment on the liver.1865Hans Brinker, or the Silver SkatesMary Mapes DodgeHans carves, studies, rides the towing horses and finds work to support his family, and later studies hard to become a surgeon.1865Experiments in Plant Hybridisation (in Bateson's Mendel's Principles of Heredity)Gregor Mendel; William BatesonMendel grew and counted thousands of pea plants over eight years before reporting a result, as his introductory remarks note.1866Little WomenLouisa May AlcottThe March girls work at home and for wages, learning from their mother’s counsel. Opposing vice: Idleness.1868–1869MiddlemarchGeorge EliotFred Vincy gives up his hopes of an inheritance and learns land management under Caleb Garth.1871–72Around the World in Eighty DaysJules VernePlanning and steady movement win against wasted time. Opposing vice: Sloth.1873Slaughter-House CasesSupreme Court of the United StatesThe butchers went to law to defend the trade by which about a thousand of them supported their families.1873Far from the Madding CrowdThomas HardyGabriel thatches the ricks alone through the night of the storm while the other men lie drunk.1874The Wise Woman (A Double Story)George MacDonaldDriven at first by hunger, Rosamond dusts, sweeps, waters the heather bed and washes herself before the food appears.1875Munn v. IllinoisSupreme Court of the United StatesField defends owners who had embarked their capital and labor in building the elevators and claimed the fruits of that work.1877Life on the MississippiMark TwainThe cub memorizes twelve hundred miles of river, upstream and down, by day and night, until he can steer a boat through any crossing.1883The Adventures of PinocchioCarlo CollodiOn the Island of the Busy Bees he learns that bread must be earned, and in the last chapter he weaves baskets late into the night.1881-1883 (Italian; book 1883)Rerum NovarumPope Leo XIIILeo calls labor an honorable calling and pictures the worker saving his wages to buy a small estate for his family.1891Popular Scientific LecturesErnst MachThe orientation lecture reports repeated experiments on his own person on a rotating apparatus to test his model of the semicircular canals.1894Atlanta Exposition AddressBooker T. WashingtonWashington urges his people to dignify and glorify common labor and to put brains and skill into the common occupations of life. Opposing vice: Sloth.1895Jude the ObscureThomas HardyJude teaches himself Latin and Greek over years while baking and cutting stone, reading even as he drives the bread cart.1895Captains CourageousRudyard KiplingHarvey learns to bait, haul, clean and salt fish and stand his watch, earning ten and a half dollars a month.1897Lectures on CalvinismAbraham KuyperLecture IV honours the Dutch love of learning, from Leiden's scholars onward, as faithful work in a world that belongs to God.1898Uncle VanyaAnton ChekhovVanya and Sonia return to the estate's accounts the moment the visitors leave.1898The Theory of the Leisure ClassThorstein VeblenVeblen's instinct of workmanship, which values useful effort and dislikes waste, is the standard against which he measures conspicuous leisure.1899Up from SlaveryBooker T. WashingtonWashington sweeps the Hampton recitation room three times and dusts it four to win admission.1901 (serialized 1900-01)Just So StoriesRudyard KiplingThe Djinn makes the Camel work to make up the three days he spent saying Humph while the other animals worked double.1902Science and HypothesisHenri PoincarePoincaré works through arithmetic, geometry, mechanics, probability and electrodynamics in turn rather than settling the question by a general verdict.1902The Call of the WildJack LondonDave would rather die pulling in his place at the wheel than run free behind the sled.1903The Story of My LifeHelen KellerHelen practises her first sounds again and again until she can speak to her little sister when she comes home in 1890.1903The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of CapitalismMax WeberBaxter, as Weber presents him, teaches that diligent labor in a lawful calling is a duty owed to God and that wasted time is a grave fault.1905Anne of Green GablesL. M. MontgomeryAnne studies to tie Gilbert for first place, wins the Avery scholarship and takes up teaching to support Green Gables.1908SanshirōNatsume SōsekiNonomiya labors patiently in his basement laboratory to measure the pressure of light, indifferent to fame.1908Citizenship in a Republic ("The Man in the Arena")Theodore RooseveltHe insists that the average man must earn his own livelihood and that leisure must never mean idleness. Opposing vice: Sloth, Idleness.1910Twenty Years at Hull-HouseJane AddamsShe takes the job of garbage inspector, rising at six to follow the wagons through the ward's alleys.1910An Introduction to MathematicsAlfred North WhiteheadThe chapters build number, geometry and the calculus step by step, each extension earned by careful reasoning.1911Early Poems: A Boy's Will, North of Boston, Mountain IntervalRobert FrostMowing and The Tuft of Flowers find dignity and companionship in the solitary work of scything hay.1913–1916Swann's WayMarcel ProustFrançoise's tireless labour in Aunt Léonie's kitchen, from the Saturday lunches to the asparagus, keeps the Combray household running.1913The Story of My Boyhood and YouthJohn MuirMuir rises at one in the morning all winter to teach himself mathematics and build clocks and a sawmill in the cellar.1913Theodore Roosevelt: An AutobiographyTheodore RooseveltAs police commissioner he walks the city at midnight with Jacob Riis to see for himself whether patrolmen are on their posts.1913The MetamorphosisFranz KafkaGregor has worked for years at a job he dislikes to pay his parents' debt and hopes to send Grete to the conservatory.1915The Real Mother GooseBlanche Fisher Wright (illustrator); traditional rhymesMany rhymes quietly honor daily tasks—baking, shepherding, fetching water—as the stuff of childhood play.1916Understood BetsyDorothy Canfield FisherStranded at the fair, Betsy washes dishes and sells doughnuts until she has earned the train fare home.1917 (serialized 1916)The Burgess Bird Book for ChildrenThornton W. BurgessPeter’s repeated early visits model steady outdoor looking. Opposing vice: Sloth.1919Autobiography of Andrew CarnegieAndrew CarnegieAs a messenger boy he memorizes the firms along Pittsburgh's streets and learns to read telegraph messages by sound.1920The Golden Bough (abridged edition)James George FrazerFrazer spent some thirty years gathering and revising the evidence that fills the work's editions, as his preface recounts.1922The Great GatsbyF. Scott FitzgeraldThe boyhood schedule Henry Gatz shows Nick records young Jimmy's plan of exercise, study and self-improvement.1925Religion and the Rise of CapitalismR. H. TawneyHe credits Puritan teaching on the calling with forming habits of diligence and sober work.1926Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla CatherBishop Latour and Father Vaillant build a diocese across the desert Southwest over a lifetime.1927To the LighthouseVirginia WoolfLily Briscoe returns after ten years to finish the painting she began, despite Tansley's sneer that women cannot paint.1927Orlando: A BiographyVirginia WoolfOrlando keeps working at The Oak Tree through three centuries, revising it in Turkey, in London and in the Victorian damp until it is finished.1928Little House in the Big WoodsLaura Ingalls WilderMa keeps to her round of washing, ironing, mending, churning, cleaning and baking through the whole winter, and the girls help her churn.1932Farmer BoyLaura Ingalls WilderAlmanzo rises before dawn all year to milk, feed stock, plant, hoe and haul wood, and takes pride in doing a man's share.1933First Inaugural Address ("The only thing we have to fear")Franklin D. RooseveltHe places happiness in the joy of achievement and creative work, and names putting people to work as the greatest primary task.1933Little House on the PrairieLaura Ingalls WilderPa builds the cabin, door, chimney, roof and floor by hand from creek-bottom timber, working from dawn until dark.1935Experience and EducationJohn DeweyChapter 7 calls for steady, progressive organization of subject matter rather than activity for its own sake.1938Mr. Popper's PenguinsRichard and Florence AtwaterTo pay for twelve penguins, the family trains the birds night after night into a stage act that can earn its keep.1938Mike Mulligan and His Steam ShovelVirginia Lee BurtonMike and Mary Anne dig without stopping from sunrise to sunset to finish the Popperville cellar in a single day.1939Caps for SaleEsphyr SlobodkinaThe peddler walks the streets each day with his heavy tower of caps, and as soon as he gets them back he heads straight back to town to sell them.1940Make Way for DucklingsRobert McCloskeyShe drills the ducklings in swimming, diving, marching in line and coming when called before leading them into the city.1941The MoffatsEleanor EstesMama supports the family by sewing for customers at home, and Joey fetches the coal and does the heavy work of the house.1941The Boxcar ChildrenGertrude Chandler WarnerHenry walks to Silver City to mow grass and do odd jobs for Dr. Moore so that the family can buy food.1924; revised 1942Wickard v. FilburnSupreme Court of the United StatesFilburn's mixed farm of dairy, poultry and wheat, feeding his animals and family from his own fields, is the self-reliant labour at the centre of the case.1942Homer PriceRobert McCloskeyHomer builds his own radios, helps at the tourist camp and assembles Uncle Ulysses's doughnut machine while his uncle is at the barbershop.1943The Little PrinceAntoine de Saint-ExupéryThe prince faithfully pulls up baobab shoots and rakes his volcanoes every morning so that his planet will not be destroyed.1943Animal FarmGeorge OrwellBoxer rises early and labours longest on the harvest and the windmill, answering every setback by resolving to work harder.1945The PlagueAlbert CamusGrand keeps the statistics of the epidemic night after night with the same conscientiousness he gives to his clerical work.1947ShaneJack SchaeferJoe and Shane work through a long day with axe and shoulder until the great stump finally comes out.1949The Door in the WallMarguerite de AngeliAt St. Mark's Robin keeps at his carving, reading and swimming until his hands are skilled and his arms strong.1949Amos Fortune, Free ManElizabeth YatesAmos masters tanning at Woburn and fills the iron kettle in Jaffrey with years of honest earnings.1950Little BritchesRalph MoodyRalph herds cows for Mrs. Corcoran, hays, threshes beans and trains Sky High, earning wages to help the family.1950The Bears on Hemlock MountainAlice DalglieshHe goes back for the pot he forgot and carries it up the mountain himself, finishing his mother's errand.1952The Courage of Sarah NobleAlice DalglieshShe cooks corn cakes and keeps the camp so that her father can spend his days building the log house.1954Carry On, Mr. BowditchJean Lee LathamNat spends every spare hour of his indenture on the almanac, Latin and Newton, and later checks Moore's tables figure by figure.1955Old YellerFred GipsonWhile Papa is on the cattle drive, Travis plows, guards the corn, hunts and marks the wild hogs to keep the homestead going.1956My Side of the MountainJean Craighead GeorgeSam burns and scrapes out the hemlock by hand and spends the autumn smoking meat and storing roots and nuts for winter.1959Island of the Blue DolphinsScott O'DellKarana stores food, builds a whale-rib fence and makes weapons, canoe repairs and clothing with her own hands to survive.1960Where the Red Fern GrowsWilson RawlsBilly works for two years selling bait, berries and vegetables to save the money for his pups.1961One Day in the Life of Ivan DenisovichAleksandr SolzhenitsynShukhov stays at the wall after the signal to finish his course of cinder blocks properly.1962 (Russian; English trans. 1963)The Structure of Scientific RevolutionsThomas S. KuhnThe argument rests on detailed historical cases, from Priestley's gases to Roentgen's screens, rather than on abstract principle alone.1962The Trumpet of the SwanE. B. WhiteLouis works as camp bugler, on the Boston Swan Boats and in a Philadelphia nightclub until he has earned enough to pay for the stolen trumpet.1970Wisconsin v. YoderSupreme Court of the United StatesThe Court credited the Amish system of learning by doing, in which adolescents master farming and household skills for adult life.1972Ernst & Ernst v. HochfelderSupreme Court of the United StatesThe case turns on what diligent auditing requires, and Blackmun's dissent treats careful inquiry by accountants as a duty owed to the public.1976Diamond v. ChakrabartySupreme Court of the United StatesThe Court treats the patent law as a reward for the inventive labor that produced an organism no one had made before.1980Keep the Lights Burning, AbbiePeter and Connie RoopShe fills the lamps, trims the wicks and scrapes the frozen windows again and again while also doing the housework for her family.1985Sarah, Plain and TallPatricia MacLachlanSarah asks to learn to drive the wagon and work the farm, and puts on overalls to help mend the roof.1985When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest DynastyHugh KennedyThe chapters on palaces and court culture describe the vast labour of building, scholarship and translation that made Baghdad a centre of the world.2005
In Plutarch’s Lives
Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder), Philopoemen, Gaius Marius, Gaius Gracchus, Demosthenes, Marcus Tullius Cicero
Quotations
“The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road”
Frequently cited
“early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”
Frequently cited
“I have made millions since, but none of those millions gave me such happiness as my first week's earnings.”
“the cloud had a silver lining, as it gave me the feeling that I was doing something for my world--our family.”
“just as a clean beast chews on a cud, transformed it into the sweetest of poetry”
Frequently cited
“I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture; and amidst the observance of monastic rule, and the daily charge of singing in the church, I always took delight in learning, or teaching, or writing.”
“That is the reward for your service,”
“That’s your very own humph that you’ve brought upon your very own self by not working.”
“But uglier yet is the hump we get From having too little to do.”
“O Lord, if I am still necessary to your people, I do not shrink from toil: your will be done”
Frequently cited
“portraying a sheep from nature on a flat and polished slab, with a stone slightly pointed”
“his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation he overcame and rendered more distinct by speaking with pebbles in his mouth”
“wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.”
“The calling is not a condition in which the individual is born, but a strenuous and exacting enterprise, to be undertaken, indeed, under the guidance of Providence, but to be chosen by each man for himself, with a deep sense of his solemn responsibilities.”
“observe this short precept, give not way to solitariness and idleness. Be not solitary, be not idle”
“I have only reached this happy state after having for years suffered every possible kind of toil and danger.”
“Nature breedeth few stronge menne, the industrie and the exercise maketh manie”
Frequently cited
“whenever a result happens, especially if it be new, you should say, “What is the cause? Why does it occur?” and you will in the course of time find out the reason.”
Frequently cited
“Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?”
Frequently cited
“for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy”
“As soon as he was fully awake, the first clear thought which came into his head was, Why am I lying here”
Frequently cited
“we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of GOD, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”
“It is greed and laziness and selfishness, not hunger or weariness or cold, that take the dignity out of a man, and make him look mean.”
“for it needs not that a man shall wear armor for to be a true knight, but only that he shall do his best endeavor with all patience and humility as it hath been ordained for him to do”
“I can hardly think of any other event in my life, any discovery I ever made that gave birth to joy so transportingly glorious as the possession of these five frosty hours.”
Frequently cited
“Every struggle is a victory.”
“how blessed are the results of patient continuance in well-doing, what benefits arise from the thoughtful application of knowledge and science, and how good and pleasant a thing it is when brethren dwell together in unity, under the eye of parental love”
“But there is very little indeed to be done when we will not do that which we have to do.”
“There is but one true way, however, of getting out of any position we may be in, and that is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fit for a better”
Frequently cited
“It is easy to become the dupe of a deferred purpose, of the promise the future can never keep”
“if it were a womanly task to go about in tenement houses in order to nurse the sick, it might be quite as womanly to go through the same district in order to prevent the breeding of so-called "filth diseases."”
Frequently cited
“success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”
Frequently cited
“The sweeping of that room was my college examination”
Frequently cited
“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”
Discussion questions
- Why does Benedict call idleness the enemy of the soul?
- How is diligence different from restless busyness?
- Which character in your reading built something by patient work?
- How can schoolwork be done heartily, as to the Lord?
Other virtues: Prudence · Justice · Fortitude · Temperance · Faith · Hope · Charity · Piety · Honor · Humility · Magnanimity · Friendship