562 Effort Quotes

I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feels a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected, it is necessary to take heart again and new courage. For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.

Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.

It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

It's like you wanting to marry Miss World and she doesn't want you, what can I do about it? I can try to help you, but if she does not want to marry you what can I do?

Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been, things remain.

My mind contains many good ideas, but it's not always easy to squeeze one out.

If I do enough different things in enough different ways, I may, eventually, do something right.

Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Give up thinking as though not giving it up. Observe techniques as though not observing.

If you want to do your duty properly, you should do just a little more than that.

You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.

Effort supposes resistance.

I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.

You have to make it happen.

The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.

Sometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality.

A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.

Great patience is called for on the hard path that I have entered on.

Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed: Who does the best his circumstance allows Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.

No one ever gets far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day.

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. Our most persistent and spectacular efforts are concerned not with the preservation of what we are but with the building up of an imaginary conception of ourselves in the opinion of others. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter.

In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.

While every human being has a capacity for love, its realization is one of the most difficult achievements.

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?

Have you ever tried to split sawdust?

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

Endeavor to do well with everything you undertake.

Spare no effort to suppress selfishness, unless that effort would entail sorrow.

Hold their noses to the grindstone.

'Tis slight, not strength, that gives the greatest lift.

Forget not yet the tried intent Of such a truth as I have meant; My great travail so gladly spent, Forget not yet!

I fought for you. I fought too hard.

I don't mind workin', but I'm scared to suffer.

Miss Frobisher smiles, with little cause that I know of. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Frobisher getting through the Latin degree papers of the London University Examinations Board he wouldn't have had to fall back on camels and the eyes of needles, and Miss Frobisher's name would be a delightful surprise to encounter in Matthew, Chapter 19; as would, even more surprisingly, the London University Examinations Board. Your name is not Miss Frobisher? What is your name? Miss Burton. I'm very sorry. I stand corrected. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Burton getting through the... Oh, dear, I hope it is not I who have made you cry.

The odd time something happens and you go into some kind of enchantment (on stage). But you have to work very hard to get that. Most of the time you're just playing and singing the songs, and there's no guarantee that you are going to get anywhere....

In Armenia, the economic condition is miserable not because we have the Artsakh issue, but because, first of all, we have worked poorly. Since '95, our living condition has been heavily difficult.

Ignavum, fucos, pecus a praesepibus arcent.

I've always maintained that you can't just coast, if you do, you go backwards. It's just a slow way of liquidating... Let's do anything to get some action, you see?

I'm actually pretty athletic. I have to work out just to look fat. [1]

Why that's a hundred miles away. That's a long way to go just to eat.

I did my best, and let me urge you to do your best, too. Isn't it the least we can do for one another?

He was a gallant man, the man who never quit. He was not a man who easy to beat or defeat. To do like this, you must have great talent and also great effort.

It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.

I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study. I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

I was tough on myself because I feared being a lazy procrastinator and the inevitable result: being mediocre or second best. I always went the extra mile.

You've got to pretty much put the pedal to the medal.

Worship is not just something we feel, it is something we sweat.

My answer to this dliemma was self-discipline. I figured I could just make myself to good things, think good thoughts about other people, but that was no easier than walking up to a complete stranger and falling in love with them. I could go through the motions for a while, but sooner or later my heart would testify to its true love: darkness. Then I would get up and try again. The cycle was dehumanizing.

Marcia: Having said that, you're not Anastacia. Ok. You're trying.

Dicko: Hayley, hair looks great by the way. Curls are good for you. I've got to say, look, I don't think you're a natural at this. You have to work really hard at everything you do and it's pleasing to see the way you're moving in the right direction. I think that was a really tough song to chose. Some of those timings in there, it was a bit like a maths exam at times for me trying to keep up. But I think it's a really good style for you. That type of song. That type of artist, George as well. The only problem I have with you, I've had it for the past few weeks, is I can see you concentrating and I can hear you thinking about what you're trying to do as you're doing it and I don't know. Sometimes I just think if you could switch all of that off and just let yourself go a bit I think you'd be a lot better for it. But that was very good.

I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down and get over differences and work together. I just couldn't pull that off. I want this committee to know FEMA pushed forward with everything it had, every team, every asset it had, in order to help what we saw as potentially catastrophic disaster.

Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people - as may be noticed of most young children - does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years. ~ Ch. 8

No amount of effort can save you from oblivion. (Journals)

(To Ric Flair) Nature Boy, it's me, Mick Foley. I'm gonna send this message out to you directly. I guess it's a rebuttal of sorts in return for the claims you made against me two weeks ago on RAW. The first claim I'd like to address is that I took the easy way out in everything during my entire career, a claim that strikes me as quite odd, coming from a guy who's claim to authorship consisted solely of talking out the side of his ass while drinking heavily for a couple of days, having a professional ghost writer record the conversations and then write down things in a book, and then Ric Flair of course slaps his name on the cover of that book and calls himself an author. Strikes me as being funny seeing as how I actually spent months laboring for hundreds of hours, seven hundred and sixty pages of handwritten notebook paper pouring my heart and soul out to what would become a New York Times number one bestseller, a towering bestseller, Have a Nice Day, in which I made claims that Ric Flair may have been a less than ideal person to work for back in the mid 1990s in WCW. You see, Ric, I wanna bring you back to a time, Munich, Germany, in March of 1994 when you were my boss. Who's kidding who, Ric? You were in charge of my career! And on that night, I got my head tangled up in ropes that were a little bit too tight. I saw blood spattering on the blue mats outside. And I got back inside that ring and I threw a punch and you know what happened? My ear fell off! It fell to the ground! And by some fluke, a referee who spoke no English picked it up, handed it off to a ring announcer who tip-toed to the back. He handed it to you, Ric Flair, and said 'I've got Cactus Jack's ear,' (Remember that name, Ric?) 'What do you want me to do with it?' And Ric Flair suggested we put that ear in a bag of ice. And then Ric, you went outside and you know what you saw? Me! In the ring! Still wrestling! Does that strike you as the easy way out?! I'm a guy who travelled a thousand miles round-trip every week to learn this trade! Slept in my car! Dined on peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches 'til I felt like puking! To learn, from the bottom up, and then I get accused of not knowing how to wrestle by a guy who's main wrestling hold these days is touching another man's genitalia! Oh yeah, heading into Vengeance, Ric, I hadn't been in fear of another man since I had been an alter boy. And then you had the nerve to say oh, you've wrestled every bad-ass there is, and I'm not one of 'em! Well tell me this, Ric, how much worse could they have messed you up? These imaginary bad-asses from your past. How much worse could they have made you bleed? How much more could your family have cried? And now you wanna stand there and say 'when you get in the ring with me it's gonna be all night long, all day long.' Find a new cliche, you used up hack! Because on that day, when I saw your family cry, the space you occupied in my mind for fourteen years was gone. You no longer matter to me, Ric. You brag about your sixteen titles all you want, but I got titles of my own that count. I'm the hardcore legend! I'm a three-time WWE Champion! I'm a two-time New York Times number one bestselling author written by hand! With my mind, my heart, my desire! I've been interviewed twice by Katie Couric, and I'm a personal friend of Melina. And you, Ric Flair, whether you like it, WOOO!, or whether you don't, learn to live with it, because you get no rematch. YOU'RE OUT OF MY LIFE, YOU WASHED UP PIECE OF CRAP! YEAH~!

It is not easy to remain motivated in the face of widespread apathy and self-indulgence.

We must begin to trust each other if this country is to progress the way we want it to. But before that we have to lay the preparatory work to engender that trust by building relationships every day.

Fred Astaire once worked so hard/ he often lost his breath/ and now he taps all other chaps to death

He was a dictator who made me work harder and longer than anyone

...it is better to go on striking in the same direction than to move one's forces this way and that.

Everyone wants to be strong and self sufficient, but nobody is willing to put in the work necessary to achieve these goals

When I Asked God for Wealth He Showed Me How to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Favors He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard

Every day, I'm standing outside trying to sing my way in:

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes time and annoys the pig.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I did not have time to make it shorter.

I got where I am by the skin of my teeth and the sweat of my... everything; I sweat everywhere.

Labour for his pains.

Why not the best?

'Weel done, Cutty Sark!'

It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.

Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

'The half is greater than the whole.'

The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you're willing to work.

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes.

For honest merit to succeed amid the tricks and intrigues which are now so lamentably common, I know is difficult; but the honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all.

Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common.

God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.

Do nothing by halves Which can be done by quarters.

'When one begins to work in order to bestow, and this goes against ones nature, this is called 'toil,' since the body (refers to ones wills and desires) opposes it, being that any movement which the body does not see that it will be use for itself, it opposes with all of its strength, and tremendous powers are needed to overcome it.'

Tudo acaba, leitor; e um velho truismo, a que se pode acrescentar que nem tudo o que dura muito tempo. Esta segunda parte nao acha crentes faceis, ao contrario, a ideia de que um castelo de vento dura mais que o mesmo vento de que e feito, dificilmente se despegara da cabeca, e e bom que seja assim, para que se nao perca o costume daquelas construcoes quase eternas.

Above all, I believe in God. I believe, also, that I must live with myself, I must be able to face myself each morning and say: 'I did my best yesterday, I will do my best again today.' Each man, low- or high-born, has the same duty each day to contribute to the good of mankind.

All what we hope for is that a day will come, when we have all gone, when people will say that this man has tried, and his family tried. This is all there is to seek in this world.

I believe we must live with courage and will. I must do so because, regardless of any difficulties I face, when the time comes for me to lose my life, I would at least have done my best.