Quotes About Determination

Don't hit unless you have to, but when you hit, hit hard.

Get the books, and read and study them," he told a law student seeking advice two decades later. "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.

The story of Theodore Roosevelt," one biographer has suggested, "is the story of a small boy who read about great men and decided he wanted to be like them.

If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, anything would seem easy!

Roosevelt's leadership style was, in actuality, governed by just such a series of simple dictums and aphorisms: Hit the ground running; consolidate control; ask questions of everyone wherever you go; manage by wandering around; determine the basic problems of each organization and hit them head-on; when attacked, counterattack; stick to your guns; spend your political capital to reach your goals; and then when your work is stymied or done, find a way out.

There was a hush and everybody was holding their breath," Frances Perkins recalled. After what seemed a long-drawn moment of tension, he reached the rostrum, handed off his crutches, gripped the lectern edges with his powerful, viselike grip, tilted back his head, and "across his face there flashed a vast, world-encompassing smile.

In less than half a dozen years, seemingly from nothing and from nowhere, he had risen to become a respected leader in the state legislature, a central figure in the fight for internal improvements, an instrumental force behind the planting of the new capital, and a practicing lawyer. Given his beginnings, he had traveled an immense distance; yet, given the inordinate nature of his ambition to render himself worthy of his fellow men, he had hardly begun.

Whatever it is that you do, if you have that passion and desire for it, that's the most important thing.

I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that

In Eleanor's judgment, her husband was better able to meet the tension than many of the others, "because he'd learned from polio that if there was nothing you could do about a situation, then you'd better try to put it out of your mind and go on with your work at hand.

by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.

To answer those who asked if Lincoln would reconsider, Douglass gave an emphatic no. "Abraham Lincoln will take no step backward," he insisted. "If he has taught us to confide in nothing else, he has taught us to confide in his word.

What I had that others didn't was a capacity for sticking to it.

A hundred things to do, but only one thing to be, he said, obstinately. But perhaps I don't feel myself worthy of such a wealth of opportunity?

Her source of self respect was that she had not - as she put it - given up and crawled into safety somewhere. Into a safe marriage.

she could not see what good it would do anyone to read a novel of this kind. Yet she was writing it.

There was a certain struggling fury that went with being jobless, and persevering, and being turned down, that was different from simply being jobless.

I'd rather be a failure, like you, than succeed and all that sort of thing. But I'm not saying I'm choosing failure. I mean, one doesn't choose failure, does one? I know what I don't want, but not what I do want.

Bad luck for both of us, we are both boulder-pushers.

I made my life, the same way it looks like you're gonna make yours—out of pride and stubbornness and too much anger. You better think hard, Ruth Anne, about what you want and who you're mad at. You better think hard.

Dixon Steele: You know, when you first walked into the police station, I said to myself, "There she is — the one that's different. She's not coy or cute or corny. She's a good guy — I'm glad she's on my side. She speaks her mind and she knows what she wants." Laurel Gray: Thank you, sir. But let me add: I also know what I don't want — and I don't want to be rushed.

You'll get him," Sylvia said, pushing conviction into her wish. "We'll get him." Brub believed it. "But how many women will be murdered first?" He tipped up the glass.

He regards boredom, I observe, as the One and Mighty Enemy of his soul. And will succeed in conquering it, I am sure—if he survives the experience.

And if there's no trouble, you'll make it,' offered Will Scott, his eyes bright, his cheeks red. 'No. At the moment,' affirmed Lymond grimly, 'I am having truck with nothing less than total calamity.