Quotes About Effort

Most people don't want to hear the thing that will make it work better... They want to hear what will make it easier.

Watching my grandfather work taught me that not everything was fluid. There were certain things that you hit from different angles, but you never gave up on. You did the work that was needed, wherever that work took you.

You have to grow about eight hundred grapes to get just one bottle of wine. If that isn't an argument to finish the bottle, I don't know what is. —Anonymous

She expected it. You can dodge the first devil that can sabotage your efforts by making sure you ask, not expect.

La vida es como trabajar en el huerto: es necesario esperar el tiempo justo para recoger el fruto apropiado.

El hombre trabaja para su propia destrucción

The grade of Nineteenth Avenue was so daunting for the engines of the day that watching automobiles straining for the top became a local pastime.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

Everyone thinks everything's a waste of time when it's not the thing that leads to an answer.

It's one thing to watch someone row; it's quite another to try it oneself in heavy seas, and this was a bad moment to begin wondering if the American privateers on the Good Shepherd would be certain to help her and if there was any chance that Devon might have lied about the Shepherd's identity.

I'd rather live knowing I made a mistake than wondering if I could have made a difference if I'd tried.

And I bet it's harder than people think, isn't it? Everything looks so simple from a distance. Then, the more you look, the more you see. And that's when you have to rise to the challenge.

Ellos se limitaban a jugar, tú te desangrabas en el juego.

The way you learn to ride is by riding.

Conscious fun takes effort. This seeming paradox—Why should fun be work?—stops us in our tracks. So we overindulge in effortless fun (scrolling through Instagram . . .) It is the effortful fun that makes today different, and makes today land in memory. You don't say "Where did the time go?" when you remember where the time went.

the force of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules.

I define "work" as activities that are advancing you toward the career and life you want. If they aren't, then they are not work. This is true even if they appear on your work calendar or you've always done them

There is a lot of randomness in the universe, but truly lucky people recognize that fairy godmothers are lazy. If taking your career to the next level will require your fairy godmother to tip her wand, make sure the wand is pointed at you, and that you're standing as close to her as possible, so all she has to do is nudge the thing like a bored barfly fiddling with a cocktail glass.

La diversión que implica esfuerzo es lo que hace que el día de hoy sea distinto y que aterrice en la memoria.

As Anatole France once wrote, "Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

Conscious fun takes effort. This seeming paradox—Why should fun be work?—stops us in our tracks. So we overindulge in effortless fun (scrolling through Instagram posts about dinner parties), and underindulge in effortful fun (throwing a dinner party ourselves). But "although minutes spent in boredom or anxiety pass slowly," writes Grudin, "they nonetheless add up to years which are void of memory.

Calling something "work" doesn't make it a more noble use of time than anything else. Work that doesn't advance you toward the life you want is still wasted time.

You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought

In any case, in general, I prefer to avoid conflict when I can. Not because I'm afraid or because I'm too weak to fight back. But because conflict eats up your time. It is exhaustive in terms of energy you have to expend to be involved in it. More if you mean to win, and I'd never do it if I didn't mean to win. I'd rather spend my time on other things and in general, most people aren't worth that much of my time and energy.