Resolution

Resolution is the state of being resolute, having a strong will, determination.

Quotes

• Videlicit,
  That each man swore to do his best
  To damn and perjure all the rest.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto II, line 630.

• I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch AND I WILL BE HEARD.
  • William Lloyd Garrison, Salutatory of the Liberator, Volume I. No. 1. (1 January 1831).

• I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
  • William Lloyd Garrison, Salutatory of the Liberator, Volume I. No. 1. (1 January 1831).

• Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind.
  • Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 22, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 668-69.

• You may be whatever you resolve to be. Determine to be something in the world, and you will be something. I cannot, never accomplished anything: I will try, has wrought wonders.
  • Joel Hawes, as quoted in "Thoughts on the Business of Life" at forbes.com.

• In truth there is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, Twice-Told Tales (1842), Fancy's Show Box.

• Hast thou attempted greatnesse?
  Then go on;
  Back-turning slackens resolution.
  • Robert Herrick, Regression Spoils Resolution, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 668-69.

• For when two
  Join in the same adventure, one perceives
  Before the other how they ought to act;
  While one alone, however prompt, resolves
  More tardily and with a weaker will.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book X, line 257, Bryant's translation.

• Alas! we make
  A ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,
  But sleep ourselves at the foot: our high resolves
  Look down upon our slumbering acts.
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Venetian Bracelet (1829) 'A History of the Lyre'

• What mockeries are our most firm resolves !
  To will is ours, but not to execute.
  We map our future like some unknown coast,
  And say, "Here is an harbour, here a rock —
  The one we will attain, the other shun :"
  And we do neither.
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) (1838), Vol. I Chapter 13

• Resolve, and thou art free.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Masque of Pandora (1875), Part VI : In the Garden.

• In life's small things be resolute and great
  To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate
  Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee,
  "I find thee worthy; do this deed for me?"
  • James Russell Lowell, Epigram, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 668-69.

• Never tell your resolution beforehand.
  • John Selden, Table Talk, Wisdom, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 668-69.

• Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
  Threaten the threat'ner and outface the brow
  Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
  That borrow their behaviours from the great,
  Grow great by your example and put on
  The dauntless spirit of resolution.
  • William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act V, scene 1, line 48.

• And hearts resolved and hands prepared
  The blessings they enjoy to guard.
  • Tobias Smollett, Humphry Clinker, Ode to Leven Water, as reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 668-69.