Quotes About Achievement

It is not proper for man's life to be a circle, she thought, or a string of circles dropping off like zeros behind him—man's life must be a straight line of motion from goal to farther goal, each leading to the next and to a single growing sum.

You'll get everything society can give a man. You'll keep all the money. You'll take any fame or honor anyone might want to grant. You'll accept such gratitude as the tenants might feel. And I—I'll take what nobody can give a man, except himself.

The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard.

It was only in the first few years that she felt herself screaming silently, at times, for a glimpse of human ability, a single glimpse of clean, hard, radiant competence. She had fits of tortured longing for a friend or enemy with a mind better than her own.

When we gaze at the magnificence of an ancient monument and ascribe its achievement to one man, we are guilty of spiritual embezzlement. We forget the army of craftsmen, unknown and unsung, who preceded him in the darkness of the ages, who toiled humbly - all heroism is humble - each contributing his small share to the common treasure of his time. A great building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is merely a condensation of the spirit of a people.

Money is made—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

The unrecognized genius-that's one old story. Have you ever thought of a much worse one-the genius recognized too well?

I have, let's say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.

Yet no penny of his wealth had been obtained by force or fraud; he was guilty of nothing, except that he earned his own fortune and never forgot that it was his.

The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard.

There's no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day.

Haw was beginning to realize the difference between activity and productivity.

He learned the two new sports, and in the process, found that doing something new made him feel young. It wasn't long before his boss recognized

any for some time until they finally went into an area of the Maze where they had never been before: Cheese Station N. They squealed with delight. They found what they had been looking for:

They liked working in a company that valued action and results.

I enjoyed the feeling that comes with becoming a better person.

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.

everything that lifts people above their fellows arouses both emulation and jealousy.

He muscled words into deeds

She took the Saturday Review's 1962 test, "Your Literary I.Q.," and outscored VN by a long shot;

There are cities in which to spend a fortune and cities in which to make one; only in the rare great city can one accomplish both.

One can accomplish something only so long as one cannot accomplish everything.

Pensa che in un razzo l'uomo può scoppiare come un pallone o restare pietrificato, o andare arrosto, e poi rimangono solo gli ossicini, a ballonzolare fra le pareti di latta, sulle orbite del progresso! Noi abbiamo seguito, con gioia, questa stupenda via... e siamo arrivati, e in queste celle, sopra questi piatti, tra immortali lavandini, con una schiera di armadi fedeli, di gabinetti affezionati, qua c'è la nostra realizzazione...

Es kann keinen Flug geben ohne vorangegangene Träume vom Fliegen.