Quotes About Diligence

A lazy man works twice as hard. My mother told that to me, and now I say it to my kids. If you're writing an essay, keep it in the lines and in the margins so you don't have to do it over.

bent ostentatiously to her work.

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."—Anthony Trollope

As novelist Anthony Trollope observed, "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at night are made for mediocre minds – like those horses that are equally good for saddle and carriage, the worst kind, that can neither jump a ditch nor pull a plow.

you must - do you hear me, young man? - you must work more than you are doing!

Fabricando fit faber, age quod agis.

Create like a god. Command like a king. Work like a slave. —Constantine Brancusi

Peg and I are in the trenches of social media, not in a war room back at headquarters. We acquired our knowledge though experimentation and diligence, not pontification, sophistry, and conference attendance.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing slowly... very slowly.

Áður fyrr voru engin verk kölluð sóðaleg nema þau sem unnin voru án vandvirkni af kæringarlausum verkamanni og lýstu handbragði skussa og ómennis.

I want to be a journalist; I want to ask tough questions.

You're constantly asking yourself, 'Am I doing enough? Am I living up to this moment? Am I asking the toughest questions of the president to make sure we're continuing to do our job to hold him accountable for his words and his promises?'

I don't tour the TV studios. I don't gossip over lunch. I don't drink in Parliament's bars. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve. I just get on with the job in front of me.

I spend hours mowing the lawn in absolutely straight lines on my tractor. If it's not right, I do it again.

Emily Gannett is tireless. I know this because I have traded emails with her at 2 A.M. only to later wake blearily to a chipper morning missive sent south of 6 A.M. before her morning run.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

First I shake the whole Apple tree, that the ripest might fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf.

Trust comes only with genuine effort, never with a lick and a promise.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light.

When a job is to be done there's no use putting it off.

It's only the last turn of a bolt that tightens it – the rest it's just movement.

Learn to Like the Things That Need to be Done

After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little.