Gaining Confidence

Famous quotes containing the words gaining and/or confidence:

    Remember stories you read when a boy
    The shipwrecked sailor gaining safety by
    His knife, treetrunk, and lianas for now
    You must escape, or perish saying no.
    Philip Larkin (1922–1986)

    I see advertisements for active young men, as if activity were the whole of a young man’s capital. Yet I have been surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful compliment this to pay me!
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)