Inscribe all human effort with one word, Artistry’s haunting curse, th — Effort

"These ceremonies and the National Statuary Hall will teach the youth of the land in succeeding generations as they come and go that the chief end of human effort in a sublunary view should be usefulness to mankind, and that all true fame which should be perpetuated by public pictures, statues, and monuments, is to be acquired only by noble deeds and high achievements and the establishment of a character founded upon the principles of truth, uprightness, and inflexible integrity."

"The mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort."

"He has called on the best that was in us. There was no such thing as half-trying. Whether it was running a race or catching a football, competing in school—we were to try. And we were to try harder than anyone else. We might not be the best, and none of us were, but we were to make the effort to be the best. “After you have done the best you can,” he used to say, “the hell with it.”"

"Those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes."

"Give Me leisure, all the time Maecenas found For Horace and his Virgil, and Ill try To build a masterpiece destined to live And save my name from ashes. When the ground Is poor, the ox works listlessly; rich soil Tires, but theres satisfaction then in toil."

"Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil."