Quotes About Effort

One of the big mistakes I think we make in relationships is that we don't give our best energy to the people that matter most.

Harry S. Truman said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

We don't think enough about the steps required to achieve those ends, and when we do we underestimate how much time and effort they will take. But thinking only about looming deadlines and short-term goals is a mixed bag as well. We focus on what is feasible, on the steps to take right now, but we forget or downplay long-term goals. So we direct our efforts toward achievable milestones even when they undermine our ability to reach our ultimate destination.

But an occasional strategic outburst seems to be effective because "targets" construe their temporary tormentor as trying to motivate them to try harder and to be smarter—they don't dismiss it as just the usual ranting from a certified asshole who berates them constantly

we justify all the time, effort, suffering, and years and years that we devote to something by telling ourselves and others that there must be something worthwhile and important about it or we never would have so much of our lives sunk into it.

This one went unusually smoothly. When I finished it, I remarked to a friend that I felt like an engineer who had designed a machine and then sat back and realized it did everything I'd set out to do. Which made him say, quite emphatically, "No engineer has ever felt this.

You have to sow before you can reap. You have to give before you can get.

You develop a positive mental attitude by being good at what you do, by understanding the realities of what it takes to succeed, and by having the self-discipline to base your actions on those realities.

To use the human metaphor, it would be like trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. It can't be done.

the bar. When he reached it, a

if there's no need to climb, then there's no reason to learn how to climb.

Umjesto da osjetiš zavist, samo se smješkaš, ideš dalje i nastojiš se usavršiti u radu. Boriš se sa svojim nesavršenostima koje možda otkriješ u tu?im dostignu?ima! Samo što ve?ina ljudi nije takva, naprotiv, rade upravo suprotno! Možda zato što je mnogo teže raditi nego cmizdriti!

How much of the total educational effort is devoted to teaching people who do not have a motivation, other than responding to compulsion, to learn what we are trying to teach them? Is there any way out of this dilemma (if you concede that it is a dilemma) other than Ivan Illich's revolutionary approach?

Preparing the young for responsible roles as servants is neither expensive nor difficult to do, but it is not now the focus of much explicit effort. It is assumed to be one of those things that is implicit; it is just supposed to happen. And we have charmed ourselves into believing that it is being done. It is not being done!

No hay beneficio sin sacrificio» y «Quien temprano se acuesta, temprano se levanta...».

It's the climbing that makes the man. Getting to the top is an extra reward.

If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.

Espionage is an effort to find windows into men's souls.

Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.

Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.

Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much:—surely that may be his epitaph of which he need not be ashamed.

Our mission in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in the best of spirits.

We look for some reward of our endeavours and are disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well.

The saints are the sinners who keep on trying.