Quotes About Achievement

and it's a little planet, dears, out on the edge of a little galaxy. You can be proud that it's done so well.

We are never satisfied with what we have done. We know that our best is never adequate. If I had to be satisfied with what I have written I'd still be on my first novel. But I wrote what was for me the best book I could write at that moment in time.

The first rule of winning is to believe you're capable of winning.

But in University women were there because they were studious. Or because they wanted people to think they

The ability to take a walk from one point to the next point, that is half the battle won.

Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung...We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by "we" I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

It wasn't an excuse. It was a fact. He'd had to make his way alone, and no one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses — ever makes it alone.

It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.

You don't start at the top if you want to find the story. You start in the middle, because it's the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world.

Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.

Much of what we consider valuable in our world arises out of (these) one-sided conflicts. Because the act of facing overwhelming odds, produces greatness and beauty.

We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail.

Extraordinary achievement is less about talent than it is about opportunity.

We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight

Working really hard is what successful people do

To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what's ten years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.

But the problem was, Sacks wasn't comparing herself to all the students in the world taking Organic Chemistry. She was comparing herself to her fellow students at Brown. She was a Little Fish in one of the deepest and most competitive ponds in the country—and the experience of comparing herself to all the other brilliant fish shattered her confidence. It made her feel stupid, even

According to research done by Mitchell Chang of the University of California, the likelihood of someone completing a STEM degree—all things being equal—rises by 2 percentage points for every 10-point decrease in the university's average SAT score.4 The smarter your peers, the dumber you feel; the dumber you feel, the more likely you are to drop out of science.

Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive.

Achievement is talent plus preparation.

Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play — and by "we" I mean society — in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities

Farkas's Jewish family trees go on for pages, each virtually identical to the one before, until the conclusion becomes inescapable: Jewish doctors and lawyers did not become professionals in spite of their humble origins. They became professionals because of their humble origins.

That the best students from mediocre schools were almost always a better bet than good students from the very best schools.