Quotes About Achievement

Some day we will try To do as many things as are possible And perhaps we shall succeed at a handful Of them, but this will not have anything To do with what is promised today, our Landscape sweeping out from us to disappear On the horizon.

The true workers all die in a fidget of frustration. So much to do, and so much left undone.

I have achieved nothing, nothing. I am what I always was, alone as always, locked in the same old glass prison of myself.

It ain't braggin' if y'really done it.

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement. —St. Augustine of Hippo O

So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step" (verse 26 NLT). That is exactly what every human being should do—run with certainty and purpose to win. We are not competing against others, only ourselves.

Teach us to make the most of our time … and make our efforts successful. Yes, make our efforts successful! —Psalm 90:12, 17 NLT

The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.

Suddenly, when the run itself is the goal, there are no more bad runs. Suddenly it doesn't matter if we don't finish within our goal time—or don't finish at all. What matters is that we tried, that we enjoyed the process. What matters is that we got out there.

Here's a tip though', he told me, leaning over and pressing a hand into my shoulder. 'If you want to improve your time, run faster.

The novel was written by Anshel Bronstein, the boy who had lived in the flat below him as a child. Of course, he remembered, he had wanted to be a writer. It seemed that his ambition had come true.

Unfortunately, accomplishments do not reduce internalized shame. In fact, the more one achieves, the more one has to achieve. Toxic shame is about being; no amount of doing will ever change it.

Both are driven to cover up their deep sense of self-rupture, the hole in their soul. They may cover up in ways that look polar opposite, but each is still driven by neurotic shame. In fact, the most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.

Toxic shame, with its more-than-human, less-than-human polarization, is either inhuman or dehumanizing. The demand for a false self to cover and hide the authentic self necessitates a life dominated by doing and achievement. Everything depends on performance and achievement rather than on being. Being requires no measurement; it is its own justification. Being is grounded in an inner life that grows in richness.

High achievement is often the result of being driven by toxic shame. Feeling flawed and defective on the inside, I had to prove I was okay by being exceptional on the outside. Everything I did was based on getting authenticated on the outside. My good feelings depended upon achievement.

In divorcing salvation from achievement, the Christian had established the priority of being over doing.

Change is the law. Stability and consistency are illusions, temporary in any case, a heroic achievement of human will and persistence at best. When we want things to stay the same, we'll always wind up playing catch-up.

First we had the legs race. Then we had the arms race. Now we're going to have the brain race.

My degrees are scholarates, not mere doctorates. I've always been very proud of that. Like surgeons over in Britain, taking offense at being called Dr. So-and -so. … But it's irrelevant, it's superfluous, it's silly!

The hill, though high, I desire to ascend, The difficulty will not me offend; For Iperceive

Sure, but those times of victory over carnality happened infrequently. However, when they did happen, it was truly golden.

I did it my own self to gratify.

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds,"Yes, but I have something he will never have — enough.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date. World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker said it all when he remarked, I can give you a six-word formula for success: Thnk things through-then follow through.