Most lives are filled with half-finished tasks which were begun with enthusiasm but which have been dropped because the enthusiastic beginners did not have enough grit to carry them to a conclusion. It does not take much ability to begin a thing, and we can not estimate a man by the number of things he commences.
The test of character is in a man's ability to persist in what he undertakes until he adds the finishing stroke. The ability to hold on is one of the rarest of human virtues.
Look out for the period in your life when you are tempted to turn back! There is the danger point, the decisive period. All the great things of history have been accomplished after the great majority of men would have turned back.—Word and Works.