Quotes About Persistence

One of the most important lessons I've learned in life is this: Do not preemptively take no for an answer. Do not decide your request has been rejected before it officially has. As with so many other lessons that involve assertion, this one applies far more to women than men.

I was six years old when Congress gave women the right to vote. I've been waiting for you ever since.

You were going to fall, you always did, but you had to get up fast and keep going.

If I was sure, I'd say. For your Momma, maybe. For all of us, maybe, but I don't think so. I think, maybe, it's reaching out for that school. Somehow. I'm not saying that's what you thought you were doing or what you even wanted to do. But it's how it turned out. And I'm sorry, the way it turned out. Because somebody's slapped your hand back good and hard. But I don't want you to stop reaching, just because it didn't come out the way it should have.

No education is worth having that does not teach the lesson of concentration on a task, however unattractive. These lessons, if not learnt early, will be learnt, if at all, with pain and grief in later life.

What has no shadow has no strength to live.

It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends

Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor teaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup.

Keep going until something stops you, then keep going.

Hold firmly to your aspirations; tenacity breeds tenacity as success breeds success.

Tenacity is not stubbornness elevated to the level of stupidity. It is commitment to the result regardless of what has to be endured along the way.

Work through the constant challenge of tough situations that knock you down. Then get up. If you get knocked down again, get up. If you get knocked down again, get up again. Occasionally you may slow down, but don't stop.

And yet - and yet - one's kite will rise on the wind as far as ever one has string to let it go. It tugs and tugs and will go, and one is glad the further it goes, even if everybody else is nasty about it.

Why must one climb the hill ? Why must one climb? Why not stay below? Why force one's way up the slope? Why force one's way up and up, when one is at the bottom? Oh, it was very tiring, very wearying, very burdensome. Always burdens, always, always burdens.

We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

she seemed so like a wet rag that would never dry.

She waited patiently till she could go upstairs and think her own thoughts.

No, there was something in him that would not give in--neither to the whiskey, nor the woman, nor even the music. Even in the midst of his best music, it sat in the middle of him, this invisible black dog, and growled and waited, never to be cajoled. He knew of its presence--and was a little uneasy. For of course he wanted to let himself go, to feel rosy and loving and all that. But at the very thought, the black dog showed its teeth.

Even if things don't unfold the way you expected, don't be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.

You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves.

Why is it that sometimes our prayers seem not to be answered? This is a manifestation of the Buddha's wisdom, so that we can deepen our prayers, become stronger people, live more profound lives and secure deeper, more lasting good fortune. If our slightest prayer was answered immediately, we would become lazy and degenerate. And we could not hope to build a life of great dignity and substance.

Those who give up dreams, do injury to their own hearts and cannot possibly enjoy a profound sense of fulfillment in the end.

Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work in the world has been done against seeming impossibilities.