Quotes About Persistence

One balks, then agrees, then balks again only to agree again; that is the way one learns things.

followed – even now at this moment.' The one-time beggar

The Nobel laureate Anatole France once wrote, "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." To those who believe our institutions can be better than they are, I say, Dream. Believe. Plan. Act.

A final, and critical, technique for implementing change is ensuring follow-through.

Gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going. If you haven't got it there's no way the motorcycle can possibly be fixed. But if you have got it and know how to keep it there's absolutely no way in this whole world that motorcycle can keep from getting fixed. It's bound to happen. Therefore the thing that must be monitored at all times and preserved before anything else is the gumption.

It's so hard when contemplated in advance, and so easy when you do it.

Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle. This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck.

I go on living, more from force of habit than anything else.

La paura del blocco non ha senso, perché quanto più rimanete bloccati tanto più vi si schiuderà la Qualità-realtà che di volta in volta vi libererà dal blocco. Quello che veramente vi blocca è il tentativo di fuggire dal blocco.

It takes surprisingly little in terms of uncontrollable unpleasantness to make humans give up and become helpless in a generalized way.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' Failing better is something every stroke sufferer knows about.

We often rush when we should plod, forgetting that we usually accomplish more by persisting than by hurrying.

Het valt niet te ontkennen dat wij in elke afzonderlijke tak van het menselijk kunnen zo veel vooruitgang boeken dat wij terecht het gevoel hebben het niet bij te kunnen houden; zou het niet mogelijk zijn dat daaruit ook het gevoel ontstaat dat wij geen vooruitgang beleven? Uiteindelijk is vooruitgang niets anders dan het resultaat van alle gezamenlijke inspanningen, en eigenlijk kun je dus al van tevoren zeggend at de werkelijke vooruitgang altijd juist dat zal zijn wat niemand wilde.

There was only the sound of the July-flies, which seems to be inside your head like it is the grind and whirr of the springs and cogs which are you and which will not stop no matter what you say until they are good and ready.

If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting. In the end they just ask you those crappy little questions.

You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.

But the first one had not been successful. It had not been successful because in the midst of the process I tried to discover the truth and not the facts.

there is a sense of defeat at having come so far to be stopped by a mystery that can never be fathomed.

Things that are impossible usually take time.

I may not have proved a great explorer but we have done the greatest march ever made and come very near to great success. -Robert Scott-

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

It wallowed in its water-bed; it burrowed, heaved and swung; It gnawed its way ahead with grunts and sighs; Its bill of fare was rock and sand; the tailings were its dung; It glared around with fierce electric eyes. Full fifty buckets crammed its maw; it bellowed out for more; It looked like some great monster in the gloom.

You're only poor if you give up. The most important thing is that you did something. Most people only talk and dream of getting rich. You've done something. Keep going. Don't quit.

Most of the time, life does not talk to you. It just sort of pushes you around.