Quotes About Achievement

Don't aim at success ? the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity  to realize values in creative work

In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way— in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.

P]erfectionism is one of the typical hindrances on the way toward perfection.

But everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find

For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.

Inimene on kõikjal saatusega silmitsi ja sunnitud otsustama, kas kujundada kannatus saavutuseks.

Human potential at its best is to transform a tragedy into a personal triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation. . .we are challenged to change ourselves.

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sic itur ad astra

For each man his day stands fixed. For all mankind the days of life are few, and not to be restored. But to prolong fame by deeds, that is valour's task. (Hercules to Pallas)

O fortunati, quorum iam moenia surgunt!

dux femina facti ; a  woman was the author of the achievement.

I am not so gifted as at one time seemed likely.

I will achieve in my life - Heaven grant that it be not long - some gigantic amalgamation between the two discrepancies so hideously apparent to me. Out of my suffering I will do it. I will knock. I will enter.

History is too much about wars; biography too much about great men.

He should be very proud of Andrew if he got a scholarship, he said. She would be just as proud of him if he didn't, she answered. They disagreed always about this, but it did not matter. She liked him to believe in scholarships, and he liked her to be proud of Andrew whatever he did.

A good day—a bad day—so it goes on. Few people can be so tortured by writing as I am. Only Flaubert I think. Yet I see it now, as a whole. I think I can bring it off, if I only have courage and patience: take each scene quietly: compose: I think it may be a good book. And then—oh when it's finished!

quels soucis de gloire, quel intérêt, quelles satisfactions, et elles sont nombreuses, la lutte lui apporte? Sans la guerre il n y aurait pas de débouchés pour les nombreuses qualités viriles développées par la lutte; se battre ainsi demeure une caractéristique du sexe masculin [...] c est, disent certains la contrepartie de l instinct maternel, qu il ne peuvent, eux, partager

When the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerers and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards -- their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble -- the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.

I am one who will force himself to desert these windy and moonlit territories, these midnight wanderings, and confront grained oak doors. I will achieve in my life - heaven grant that it be not long - some gigantic amalgamation between the two discrepancies so hideously apparent to me. Out of my suffering I will do it. I will knock. I will enter.

Think of me, the uneducated child reading books in my room at 22 Hyde Park Gate -- now advanced to this glory... Yes; all that reading, I say, has borne this odd fruit. And I am pleased.