Quotes About Persistence

Long is the road from conception to completion.

The only way round is through.

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.

"Good enough never is" has become the motto of this company.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.

To exist is to adapt, and if one could not adapt, one died and made room for those who could.

No traveler e'er reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road.

Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.

Wood may remain ten years in the water, but it will never become a crocodile.

The person who wants to make it has to sweat. There are no short cuts. And you've got to have the guts to be hated.

The prayer of the chicken hawk does not get him the chicken.

The struggle to the top is in itself enough to fulfill the human heart. Sisyphus should be regarded as happy.

I have always been pushed by the negative.... The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

The thought that we are enduring the unendurable is one of the things that keeps us going.

Difficulties, opposition, criticism - these things are meant to be overcome, and there is a special joy in facing them and in coming out on top. It is only when there is nothing but praise that life loses its charm and I begin to wonder what I should do about it.

Down you mongrel, Death! Back into your kennel!

Your first big trouble can be a bonanza if you live through it. Get through the first trouble, and you'll probably make it through the next one.

The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.

Truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light.

The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to one's self: "The work is done."

Nothing ever gets settled in this town (Washington). It's not like running a company or even a university. It's a seething debating society, in which the debate never stops; in which people never give up, including me, and that's the atmosphere in which you administer.

As for what you're calling hard luck - well, we made New England out of it. That and codfish.

What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly?