quotations about effort
Sometimes it takes a pound of effort to gain an ounce of gold.
JON R. STONE
The Routledge Book of World Proverbs
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
"The Strenuous Life,", The Works of Theodore Roosevelt
Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
WILLIAM JAMES
Talks to Teachers on Psychology
Trying is like that. It can be very frustrating. And exhausting. Funny thing about when my daughter tries so hard. She's usually trying to do something that won't work. Like trying to put a lid on something upside down. I used to try really hard.
JOEY LOTT
The Best Thing That Never Happened
Do not attempt to accomplish greater results by a greater effort of your little understanding, but by a greater understanding of your little effort.
WALTER RUSSELL
THINK: IBM Lecture Series
The reward of a work is to have produced it; the reward of effort is to have grown by it.
ANTONIN SERTILLANGES
The Intellectual Life
On the wonder wheel I let my thunder peel
I made an effort to get just what I deserve
BECK
"Thunder Peel", Stereopathetic Soulmanure
The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.
NAPOLEON HILL
attributed, Worth Repeating
It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Dance Dance Dance
If it required some effort to go from today to tomorrow, some people would always remain in yesterday.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Productive effort is variable and volitional. It is under the control of our will or desire. No one has to make it but the consequence of non?effort is non?production thus non?consumption, a consequence most of us (who want to live) will not choose.
CHRISTOPHER ALAN ANDERSON
The Man and Woman Manifesto
You can accomplish more with less effort if you schedule important tasks at the time of day when you perform them most effectively.
MICHAEL LEBOEUF
attributed, Words of Wisdom and Quotable Quotes
All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Diary
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
WILLIAM JAMES
Talks to Teachers on Psychology
To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals -- this alone is worth the struggle.
WILLIAM OSLER
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul
God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires us to try.
MOTHER TERESA
Rolling Stone, Dec. 1992
To despise all effort is the greatest effort of all.
JOHN FOWLES
The Magus
Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.
DEMOCRITUS
attributed, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers
The smallest effort is not lost,
Each wavelet on the ocean tost
Aids in the ebb-tide or the flow;
Each rain-drop makes some floweret blow;
Each struggle lessens human woe.
CHARLES MACKAY
The Old and the New