Quotes About Achievement

I view my strongest competition as myself. You're always trying to top yourself, rather than worrying about what other people are doing.

At every premiere, I stand in the back, I never sit, worrying. And then maybe I hear them laugh or whatever, and the muscles unclench a little. But always, I feel like it's a fluke, that I'll never be able to do it again.

A lot of folks I mentor ask me, 'How did you get there?' I tell them, you never plan on it. Do a good job and treat customers well, do the right things for the right reasons. Prepare yourself, but don't spend all your time worrying about it. Just do your job, and you'll be recognized for it.

Once you've been at the top, you're always gonna know what it's like to be at the top. If you've never been at the top, you're not worrying about what it feels like being there.

The only thing worse than an opportunity you don't deserve is blowing an opportunity.

You have to change things in order to get to where you want to go. And things might get worse. But if you're not getting where you want to be, already, in a sense, it's as bad as it can get.

On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death or decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or worse, lives on in the immortality of The Larger.

The only thing worse than being in the Hall of Fame is not being in the Hall of Fame.

Certainly there are worse sins than doing everything possible to make your presidency matter.

The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.

The success that Americans are said to worship is success of a specific sort: accomplished not through hard work, primarily, but through the ingenious angle, the big break. Sit down at a lunch counter, stand back up a star. Invest in a new issue and watch it soar. Split a single atom, win a war.

The women that I worship all hit their stride in their 30s or 40s or after. And that's going to be for me, too.

I flunked my exam for university two times before I was accepted by what was considered my city's worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected student chairman and later became chairman of the city's Students Federation.

The worst part of success is to try finding someone who is happy for you.

I joined the swim team when I was 12, and I was the worst kid in the pool - I was put with a group of 7-year-olds.

I have to keep working hard and playing well because I don't like to be second or third: they're the worst places to be. You would be proud, of course, because it means you're on the way, but you want to finish first.

I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.

The worst part of success is, to me, adapting to it. It's scary.

My very worst day on 'Green Lantern' was nowhere near as difficult as my finest day on 'Buried.'

The great thing about America is that you can come from the worst circumstances and become something remarkable.

I was perhaps the worst student you have ever seen. You know, I thought I was stupid, all my classmates thought I was stupid, so there was general agreement.

On our swim team, they had something called the 'developmental meet.' I didn't know it was a meet only for the worst kids so that they could get a ribbon, and I'd show up with my friend who was also a terrible swimmer, and we would be amazed that the best kids hadn't bothered to show up. I didn't get it until after college.

Working hard is great, being lazy sometimes is great, but failed potential is the worst.

I'm the worst person to ask about how to get noticed. It took me 25 years.