Roscius should not be left out, as he was the most famous case of dedication to the stage. When he faced the general public, Roscius...

Another time, when the assembly had refused to hear him, and he was going home with his head muffled up, taking it very heavily, they...

those who labour sleep more sweetly and soundly than those who are laboured for, and could fail to see by comparing the Persians’ manner...

For this purpose I had recourse to a method of life which had been forced upon me at the Admiralty in 1914 and 1915, and which I found greatly extended my daily capacity for work. I always went to bed at least for one hour as early as possible in the afternoon and exploited to the full my happy gift of falling almost immediately into deep sleep. By this means I was able to press a day and a half’s work into one. Nature had not intended mankind to work from eight in the mornin

Churchill:

That summer, working mostly at Chartwell, Churchill completed the third volume of his Marlborough biography. A young Oxford don, Bill Deakin, agreed to help him organize the enormous amount of historical material. It was a time of formidable concentration. ‘I never saw him tired,’ Deakin later recalled. ‘He was absolutely totally organized, almost like a clock. He knew how to husband his energy, he knew how to expend it. His routine was absolutely dictatorial. He set himself

Churchill:

Within the Hellespont we saw where the original first shoddy contract mentioned in history was carried out, and the “parties of the second part” gently rebuked by Xerxes. I speak of the famous bridge of boats which Xerxes ordered to be built over the narrowest part of the Hellespont (where it is only two or three miles wide.) A moderate gale destroyed the flimsy structure, and the King, thinking that to publicly rebuke the contractors might have a good effect on the next set,

I saw a little table in the great mosaic school in Florence—a little trifle of a centre table—whose top was made of some sort of precious polished stone, and in the stone was inlaid the figure of a flute, with bell-mouth and a mazy complication of keys. No painting in the world could have been softer or richer; no shading out of one tint into another could have been more perfect; no work of art of any kind could have been more faultless than this flute, and yet to count the m

He (Tiberius) also gave certain senators financial assistance. So it was curious that he dealt high-handedly with the appeal of Marcus Hortensius Hortalus, a young nobleman who was obviously poor. Hortensius, and had been persuaded by a grant of a million sesterces from Augustus to marry and have children, thus preventing the extinction of his famous family. When Hortalus' affairs were debated in the senate and his turn came to speak, his four sons were posted at the door of

With his life engrossed by work, Hamilton had little leisure time left over for the scientific, scholarly, and artistic pursuits that embellished the days of Jefferson. He was chronically overworked and increasingly absentminded. Months after leaving office, he wrote to the Bank of the United States and admitted that he did not know his account balance because he had lost his bank book‑this from the man who had created the bank. He did not allow himself some vacation time.

During the winter encampments, Hamilton constantly educated himself, as if equipping his mind for the larger tasks ahead. "Force of intellect and force of will were the sources of his success." Henry Cabot Lodge later wrote. From his days as an artillery captain, Hamilton had kept a pay book with blank pages in the back; while on Washington's staff, he filled up 112 pages with notes from his extracurricular reading. Hamilton fit the type of the self-improving autodidact, empl

But of all the theatrical productions he had seen it was Cato, by the English author Joseph Addison, the most popular play of the time, that Washington loved best. One line in particular he was to think of or quote frequently in his role now as commander-in-chief: “Tis not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.”

Fresco Painting called for numerous preparatory stages, but among the most vital and indispensable were the drawings by which designs were worked out and then transferred to the wall. Before a single stroke of paint could be applied to the vault of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo needed to produce hundreds of sketches to establish both the intricate body of language of the characters and the overall composition of the various scenes. The poses for many of his figures, includ

This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repair'd in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I spend no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any kind; and my industry in my business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be ed

I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a-fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal, and to show that I was not above m

When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potations or, making hasty pudding

Benjamin Franklin was on a detachment that travelled with the military to build a fort. He recorded his reflections in his diary:

Tell yourself, first of all, what kind of man you want to be; and then go ahead with what you are doing. For in practically every other pursuit we see this done. The athletes first decide what kind of athletes they want to be, and then they act accordingly. If a man wants to be a distance-runner, he adopts a suitable diet, walking, rubbing, and exercise; if he wants to be a sprinter, all these details are different; if he wants to contend in the pentathlon, they are still mor

In each separate thing that you do consider the matters which come first, and those which follow after, and only then approach the thing itself. Otherwise, at the start you will come to it enthusiastically because you have never reflected upon any of the subsequent steps, but later on, when some of them appear, you will give up disgracefully. “I wish to win an Olympic victory.” But consider the matters which come before that and those which follow after; and only when you hav

Epictetus, "Now deeds that correspond to his true nature strengthen and preserve each particular man; carpentry does that for the carpenter, grammatical studies for the grammarian. But if a man acquires the habit of writing ungrammatically, his art must necessarily be destroyed and perish. So modest acts preserve the modest man, whereas immodest acts destroy him; and faithful acts preserve the faithful man while acts of the opposite character destroy him. And again, acts of t

Wisdom saying of Periander the philosopher:

Williams always believed there was no such thing as a natural hitter. Yes, you had to have good eyesight and strong wrists, but after that, there was only one way to really be great: through hard work and practice.