Selected perseverance quotes

1. 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.

2. I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.

3. By working hard, old man, I hope to make something good one day. I haven't yet, but I am pursuing it and fighting for it.

4. Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

5. It is to hope, though hope were lost.

6. 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.

7. Every time I do it at least proves I can still do it.

8. My success lies in having achieved a record numbers of failures.

9. What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.

10. All the information you need is available to you to have a successful career in music, if you're paying attention, and not closed off to anything. Remember, Perseverance is King.

11. It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.

12. There's always a way. Where there's a will there is a way. You have to believe.

13. When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go.

14. So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

15. Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.

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

17. There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults; and, what is severer than all, the presumptuous judgement of the ignorant upon their designs.

18. Our patience will achieve more than our force.

19. His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death.

20. Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

21. I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

22. He that has patience may compass anything.

23. To sigh, yet not recede; to grieve, yet not repent.

24. Heroism is endurance for one moment more.

25. The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.

26. Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.

27. Don't listen to what anybody says except the people who encourage you. If it's what you want to do and it's within yourself, then keep going and try to do it for the rest of your life.

28. If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it.

29. A hard beginning maketh a good ending.

30. I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike!

31. Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.

32. You can ask the people around me. I don't give up. I don't give up... and it's not out of frustration and desperation that I say I don't give up. I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in it.

33. You just have to keep trying to do good work, and hope that it leads to more good work. I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything. Yes, I want to look back and know that I was terrible at a variety of things.

34. Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

35. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.

36. One step at a time, I can walk around the world. Watch me.

37. Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.

38. Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.

39. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

40. Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.

41. 'I actually enjoy the pain. That's what gives me the fire inside to get up and keep going.'

42. How does a kid from Coos Bay, with one leg longer than the other win races? All my life people have been telling me, 'You're too small Pre', 'You're not fast enough Pre.' 'Give up your foolish dream Steve.' But they forgot something. I have to win.

43. Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached.

44. Don't look back-forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience-then alone can great deeds be accomplished.

45. I came to realize that exaggerated concern about what others are doing can be foolish. It can paralyze effort, and stifle a good idea. One finds that in the history of science almost every problem has been worked out by someone else. This should not discourage anyone from pursuing his own path.

46. I can assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable importance - that there are a great many people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.

47. During your life, never stop dreaming. No one can take away your dreams.

48. I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.

49. By working hard, old man, I hope to make something good one day. I haven't yet, but I am pursuing it and fighting for it.

50. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

51. The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

52. Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.

53. Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.

54. Focused will is incredible. If you have a dream and you don't give up no matter what obstacles come up, then life's problems will fall away and you will get what you want. It happens. It works.

55. I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

56. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all them to falter now? - now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail - if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

57. Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it. A strength which becomes clearer and stronger through its experience of such obstacles is the only strength that can conquer them. Resistance is only a waste of strength.

58. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.

59. It's dogged as does it. It's not thinking about it.

60. When the first Superman movie came out, I gave dozens of interviews to promote it. The most frequent question was: What is a hero? My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences. Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. They are the real heroes, and so are the families and friends who have stood by them.

61. 'My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will never surrender to what is right.'

62. But often faltering feet Come surest to the goal; And they who walk in darkness meet The sunrise of the soul.

63. I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

64. Yet I argue not Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate one jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer Right onward.

65. I used to think as I looked at the Hollywood night, 'There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.'

66. The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn't do as horses or cats or angle-worms would probably have done - turn back and get at something profitable - no, anxious as they had before been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be. There is no accounting for human beings.

67. I am an American, Chicago born - Chicago, that somber city - and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.

68. To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. 'I will drink the ocean', says the persevering soul; 'at my will mountains will crumble up'. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.

69. Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow -- never a man. So never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.

70. To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained-who can say this is not greatness?

71. Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

72. The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.

73. If you are going through hell, keep going.

74. Better late than never.

75. Don't give up. Don't lose hope. Don't sell out.

76. I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'

77. I had made up my mind to find that for which I was searching even if it required the remainder of my life. After innumerable failures I finally uncovered the principle for which I was searching, and I was astounded at its simplicity. I was still more astounded to discover the principle I had revealed not only beneficial in the construction of a mechanical hearing aid but it served as well as means of sending the sound of the voice over a wire. Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that when a man gives his order to produce a definite result and stands by that order it seems to have the effect of giving him what might be termed a second sight which enables him to see right through ordinary problems. What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

78. Victory; a matter of staying power

79. Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties

80. Failure is impossible.

81. In time the savage bull sustains the yoke, In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure, In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak, In time the flint is pierced with softest shower.

82. I kept stumbling and falling and stumbling and falling as I searched for the good. 'Why?' I asked myself. Now I believe that I was on the right path all along, particularly with the Green Belt Movement, but then others told me that I shouldn't have a career, that I shouldn't raise my voice, that women are supposed to have a master. That I needed to be someone else. Finally I was able to see that if I had a contribution I wanted to make, I must do it, despite what others said. That I was OK the way I was. That it was all right to be strong.

83. I'm tired of fighting.

84. Ad astra per aspera.

85. (when Eddie tries to interupt Rock after La Bamba) Y arriba y arriba!

86. The people, who were trying to make this world worse... are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.'

87. You can't kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up a little sometimes, but you can't kill him.

88. Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded.

89. 'Love is a battle,' said Marie-Claude, still smiling. 'And I plan to go on fighting. To the end.'

90. The demands which the difficult work of love makes upon our development are more than life-size, and as beginners we are not up to them. But if we nevertheless hold out and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in all the light and frivolous play, behind which people have hidden from the most earnest earnestness of their existence - then a little progress and alleviation will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us; that would be much.

91. All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance: it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pick-axe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings. It is therefore of the utmost importance that those, who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason, and their spirit, the power of persisting in their purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they cannot batter, and the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks.

92. It's gonna take the man in me to conquer this insanity/It seems tha rain'll never let up

93. Despite the snow, despite the falling snow.

94. Victory depends on whether or not a duelist has the courage to fight until the bitter end.

95. There is little danger that any student, however idle or stupid, will fail to get some result; but there is great danger that he will be led astray, obsessed and overwhelmed by his results, even though it be by those which it is necessary that he should attain. Too often, moreover, he mistaketh the first resting-place for the goal, and taketh off his armour as if he were a victor ere the fight is well begun. It is desirable that the student should never attach to any result the importance which it at first seems to possess.

96. Perseverance must have some practical end, or it does not avail the man possessing it. A person without a practical end in view becomes a crank or an idiot. Such persons fill our asylums.

97. Once at the croak of a Raven who crost it, A barbarous people, Blind to the magic, And deaf to the melody, Snarl'd at and cursed me. A demon vext me, The light retreated, The landskip darken'd, The melody deaden'd, The Master whisper'd 'Follow The Gleam.'

98. 'Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. 'Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest nights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 'Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 'I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. 'If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; 'And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower 'Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all.'

99. I'm here, I'm not queer, and I'm not going away.

100. Truth is the light / So you never give up the fight.