Quotes About Effort

Many of us have joined a swim team at one time or another, and there is a shared foundational experience here that's worth examining. Battle past the desperate life-or-death phase of swimming, and you begin to appreciate how good the water feels. Join a team, and you begin to appreciate the company you keep. Competition happens when you get good enough at swimming to want to be better.

We can't fix all problems but we must fix the ones we can

The arc of the moral universe does not bend toward justice. It has to be bent, and this requires sheer force of will. It demands our sharpest focus and most concentrated effort. History does not move in a straight line; it has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, all the way down the line.

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.

Any problem can be solved with patience, wisdom and earnest effort.

Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.

I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind (surprises) if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life -- that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living. I pity the man, black or white, who has never experienced the joy and satisfaction that come to one by reason of an effort to assist in making someone else more useful and more happy.

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work

never liked the atmosphere of Washington. I early saw that it was impossible to build up a race of which the leaders were spending most of their time, thought, and energy in trying to get into office, or in trying to stay there after they were in. So, for the greater part of my life, I have avoided Washington; and even now I rarely spend a day in that city which I do not look upon as a day practically thrown away.

He aprendido que el exito, no se mide tanto por la posicion que uno ha alcanzado en la vida, como por los obstaculos, que se han tenido que superar en el esfuerzo por el triunfo.

I confess that what I saw during my month of travel and investigation left me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. I was only one person, and it seemed to me that the little effort which I could put forth could go such a short distance toward bringing about results. I wondered if I could accomplish anything, and if it were worth while for me to try.

Every time you are not practicing someone else is.

We must always strive to achieve perfection, even when we know perfection is not entirely achievable.

He must put his whole life into his work, who would do it well, and make it potential to influence other lives.

The reveries of the dreamer advance his hopes, but not their realization. One good hour of earnest work is worth them all.

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

On Success & Failure: If you haven't failed, you haven't tried hard enough. Success in obtaining anything worth any value requires a long chain of failures. Otherwise everyone would have it.

What we do is hard. This is not where people go to retire.

Jeff, um dia você entenderá que é mais difícil ser bom do que ser inteligente.

Ian Cornwell tries too hard to look professorial—unruly hair, unkempt beard, tweed jacket, mustard-hued corduroy pants.

Writing a novel is like going a great distance to take a small shit.

People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it.

You rarely win, but sometimes you do.