Quotes About Commitment

Sticking with his habitual policy of creative procrastination, Rockefeller promised nothing and invited Gates for breakfast the next morning.

He constantly reminded his son that it was easier to launch a charitable commitment than to end it.

My brave fellows," he said, "you have done all I asked you to do and more than could be reasonably expected. But your country is at stake, your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear . . . If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty and to your country which you probably can never do under any other circumstances.

There certainly are some drawbacks to belonging to a busy man no matter how fine he may be as I believe you have sometimes found out.48

To live with his own conscience, he told his father, he had to resign from the trust and devote his life to philanthropy.

Then suddenly, in early 1889, Rockefeller grew aloof toward William Rainey Harper, who had committed the classic error of promoting his cause too assertively.

Something about this deep domesticity and respectability pleased Washington, who was never cut out for a gallivanting, footloose life. Martha gave him a secure, happy base for the myriad activities of a busy career. She was his dear companion, trusted adviser, and confidante long after lust faded, and they delighted in each other's company.

Once he had made up his mind, however, he was no longer troubled by doubts and pursued his vision with undeviating faith.

Gates met with Harper and urged him to shed his outside activities.

He believed there was a time to think and then a time to act. He brooded over problems and quietly matured plans over extended periods. Once he had made up his mind, however, he was no longer troubled by doubts and pursued his vision with undeviating faith. Unfortunately, once in that state of mind, he was all but deaf to criticism. He was like a projectile that, once launched, could never be stopped, never recalled, never diverted.

He was not a man to abandon a project that had received his blessing.

One could now see in his face the subdued melancholy of a man who had sacrificed too much for work.

Eliza Hamilton was committed to one holy quest above all others: to rescue her husband's historical reputation from the gross slanders that had tarnished it.

Junior decided to look elsewhere and finally selected Brown because three close friends had chosen to attend it.

Wanting to dedicate himself to philanthropy

By early 1873, he had crossed his own Rubicon and never looked back.

As part of this studious approach, he recorded all his golf scores in thick little books, with names, dates, and places included.

I'm doing this in love.

I reflected that, when dynamic, positive change happens, it is usually because of generational commitment to social transformation.

Here was the secret of this house, the thing it took bravery to face -- that to go on loving someone means to over and over again allow the necessary pain.

I've defined myself, privately and publicly, by my brief, intense years as an athlete, a swimmer. I practices five or six hours a day, six days a week, eating and sleeping as much as possible. Weekends were either spent training or competing. I wasn't the best; I was relatively fast...

In order to win, you must be prepared to lose.

Time to shit or get off the pot.

No jokes, no banter. No pre-mission