Entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove in 1867 to formerly enslaved parents, built a hair care business that made her America’s first recognised self-made female millionaire. Her parents died when she was a child, and she worked as a laundress in St. Louis before she started selling hair products. She told audiences at … Read more
This quote is widely attributed to Albert Schweitzer, the Alsatian physician, theologian and musician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. It appears in the 1984 collection The Words of Albert Schweitzer, though a single original book or speech for the exact wording is hard to confirm. It fits closely with his lifelong philosophy … Read more
This quote is consistently credited to Tom Peters, the American management writer best known for In Search of Excellence, and it appears under his name across business and leadership writing. A specific original book or speech for the exact wording is hard to pin down, so it is best described as “widely attributed to Tom … Read more
This quote is genuinely Disraeli’s. It comes from his 1832 novel Contarini Fleming, where the original line reads: “Never apologize for showing feeling, my friend. Remember that when you do so, you apologize for truth.” The shorter version that circulates online is a tidied-up paraphrase, and the meaning is identical. Disraeli went on to serve … Read more
This one deserves a correction before anything else. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s own research center at Monticello lists this quote as spurious, meaning it doesn’t appear anywhere in Jefferson’s letters, speeches or writings. Its earliest known appearance in print dates to 2004, nearly two centuries after Jefferson’s death, and it wasn’t attributed to him in … Read more
Writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau, who lived from 1817 to 1862, built a cabin beside Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, in 1845 and lived there for two years, two months and two days. He turned that experiment into Walden, published in 1854, and ended the book with a chapter of short, direct advice. In … Read more
“Waste No More Time Arguing What a Good Man Should Be. Be One” is a comfortable kind of conversation that never actually costs anything: discussing what good leadership looks like, debating what integrity means, arguing over the definition of fairness. These conversations can go on indefinitely, and feel productive while they’re happening, without a single … Read more
Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith, born in 1728, made his name as a novelist, playwright and poet, and is best known for The Vicar of Wakefield and the comedy She Stoops to Conquer. He also wrote a satirical work in letters called The Citizen of the World, narrated by an imagined Chinese philosopher living in London. … Read more
There’s a particular kind of waiting many people live in without noticing it. Life will really start once the promotion comes through, once the business hits a certain revenue, once the house is paid off, once the next milestone arrives. Each plan feels like the thing standing between now and the life that’s supposed to … Read more
Author, lecturer and activist Helen Keller spent most of her life proving that one person’s limits are not the end of the story. Born in Alabama in 1880, she lost her sight and hearing as a toddler, learned language through her teacher Anne Sullivan, and went on to earn a university degree and campaign for … Read more