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No pressure, no diamonds. Quotes and Quotations
 I am not the smartest or most talented person in the world, but I succeeded because I keep going, and going, and going.  I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. Victory belongs to the most persevering. Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed. Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend. They who are the most persistent, and work in the true spirit, will invariably be the most successful. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average. The secret of success is constancy of purpose. The only way to the top is by persistent, intelligent, hard work. The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night. I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn't give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you. Call the roll in your memory of conspicuously successful [business] giants and, if you know anything about their careers, you will be struck by the fact that almost every one of them encountered inordinate difficulties sufficient to crush all but the gamest of spirits. Edison went hungry many times before he became famous. Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. Four steps to achievement: plan purposefully, prepare prayerfully, proceed positively, pursue persistently. Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs. Persistence is the master virtue. Without it, there is no other. I'm hardnosed about luck. I think it sucks. Yeah, if you spend seven years looking for a job as a copywriter, and then one day somebody gives you a job, you can say, "Gee, I was lucky I happened to go up there today." But dammit, I was going to go up there sooner or later in the next seventy years. ... If you're persistent in trying and doing and working, you almost make your own fortune. It's the plugging away that will win you the day So don't be a piker old pard! Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit- It's the keeping your chin up that's hard. No one succeeds without effort. ... Those who succeed owe their success to their perseverance. Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting. Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it.... You start out lowly and humble and you carefully try to learn an accretion of little things that help you get there. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Continuous efforts-not strength or intelligence-is the key to unlocking our potential. Plodding wins the race. - Aesop The difficulties and struggles of today are but the price we must pay for the accomplishments and victories of tomorrow. Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity. A winner never quits and a quitter never wins. Men who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others idled, have persevered when others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success so often erroneously attributed to good luck. In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm; in the real world, all rests on perseverance. There's such a thin line between winning and losing. It is easier to begin well than to finish well. - Plautus The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings. I hope I shall have ambition until the day I die. When you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row. Out of the strain of the Doing, Into the peace of the Done. Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending. There are two parts to the creative endeavor: making something, then disseminating it. We rate ability in men by what they finish, not by what they begin. A chicken doesn't stop scratching just because worms are scarce. Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, never to turn back or to stop until the thing intended was accomplished. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is, why did other people stop? Men perish because they cannot join the beginning with the end. - Alcmaeon Business is full of brilliant men who started out with a spurt and lacked the stamina to finish. Their places were taken by patient and unshowy plodders who never knew when to quit. I can remember walking as a child. It was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition. He that has cut the claws of the lion will not feel quite secure until he has also drawn his teeth. Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.... I had poems which were rewritten so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out. Let no one 'til his death be called unhappy. Measure not the work Until the day's out, and the labor done: Then bring your gauges. All is well that ends well. Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it. - Ovid In soloing-as in other activities-it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it. It is a matter first of beginning-and then following through. Genius begins great works, labor alone finishes it. There is but an inch of difference between the cushioned chamber and the padded cell. The only way to find out if you can write is to set aside a certain period every day and try. Save enough money to give yourself six months to be a full-time writer. Work every day and the pages will pile up. I work every day-or at least I force myself into my office or room. I may get nothing done, but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months, but you don't earn the fourth without it. When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence, but by oft falling. It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop. Live with no time out. The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving. The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running. My parents told me that people will never know how long it takes you to do something. They will only know how well it is done. By perseverance the snail reached the Ark. Our desire must be like a slow and stately ship, sailing across endless oceans, never in search of safe anchorage. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, it will find mooring for a moment. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. - Bible If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. It's the steady, constant driving to the goal for which you're striving, not the speed with which you travel, that will make your victory sure. I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back. Slow and steady wins the race. Character is built into the spiritual fabric of personality hour by hour, day by day, year by year in much the same deliberate way that physical health is built into the body. No great thing is created suddenly. Be content to grow a little each day. If the improvement is the sort of thing which is very slow, do not measure it too often. Do a self-comparison every two weeks, or every six months, whatever is appropriate. Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it. Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast. Plodding wins the race. - Aesop The way of progress is neither swift nor easy. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows slowly endures. Make haste slowly. - Augustus Slow motion gets you there faster. I'm not there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday. Life begins on the other side of despair. I am suffocated and lost when I have not the bright feeling of progression. The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. You give ioo percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough, in the second half you give what's left. Don't get hung up on a snag in the stream, my dear. Snags are not so dangerous-it's the debris that clings to them that makes the trouble. Pull yourself loose and go on. One can go a long way after one is tired. The great thing, and the hard thing, is to stick to things when you have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which comes with a sort of mastery. Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually, one discovers that it is not boring, but very interesting. No one ever did anything worth doing unless he was prepared to go on with it long after it became something of a bore. I've been failing for like, ten or eleven years. When it turns, it'll turn. Right now I'm just tryin' to squeeze through a very tight financial period, get the movie out, and put my things in order. In our day, when a pitcher got into trouble in a game, instead of taking him out, our manager would leave him in and tell him to pitch his way out of trouble. - Cy Young I'm a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down to bleed a while. Then I'll rise and fight again. The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins. Where I am today has everything to do with the years I spent hanging on to a career by my fingernails. Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. Hope says to us constantly, "go on, go on," and leads us to the grave. Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement. The line between failure and success is so fine that we ... are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. It is with enterprises as with striking fire; we do not meet with success except with reiterated efforts, and often at the instant when we despaired of success. Saints are sinners who kept on going. We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough. When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, 'til it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. Men do not fail, they stop trying. It ain't over 'til it's over. Triumph often is nearest when defeat seems inescapable. Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination. And the best motto for a long march is, "Don't grumble. Plug on!" Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than before. - Polybius Never stop. One always stops as soon as something is about to happen. Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round. Don't leave before the miracle happens! If something doesn't come up the way you want, you have to forge ahead. Fortune is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall. This man Wellington is so stupid he does not know when he is beaten, and goes on fighting. He never knew when he was whipped ... so he never was. Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before a final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence. There are a lot of people out there with good and marketable ideas, but pure entrepreneurial types almost never accept defeat. As long as a person doesn't admit he is defeated, he is not defeated-he's just a little behind, and isn't through fighting. Only yield when you must, never "give up the ship," but fight on to the last "with a stiff upper lip!" Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it. There is something in me-I just can't stand to admit defeat. There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it. Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never.... In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions or honor and good sense! First there are those who are winners, and know they are winners. Then there are the losers who know they are losers. Then there are those who are not winners, but don't know it. They're the ones for me. They never quit trying. They're the soul of our game. It's not worthy of human beings to give up. Never admit defeat! We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the halls. We shall never surrender. Patient endurance attends to all things. To be somebody you must last. He conquers who endures. Emotional maturity is the ability to stick to a job and to struggle through until it is finished, to endure unpleasantness, discomfort and frustration. To bear is to conquer our fate. Keep breathing. It helps, I think, to consider ourselves on a very long journey: the main thing is to keep to the faith, to endure, to help each other when we stumble or tire, to weep and press on. The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last in it, and not be smashed by it. The first need of being is endurance; to endure with gladness if we can, with fortitude in any event. I bend, but I do not break. He that endureth to the end shall be saved. - Bible Whatever necessity lays upon thee, endure; whatever she commands, do. To be somebody you must last. In the clutch of circumstance, I have not winced or cried aloud; Under the bludgeoning of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed. We shall live to fight again, and to strike another blow. Giving up is the ultimate tragedy. God Almighty hates a quitter. Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes. - Buddha Endure, and preserve yourselves for better things. - Virgil Every kind of fortune is to be overcome by bearing it. - Virgil When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practical. This lessons the evil, while fretting and fuming only serve to increase your own torments. If you want to see the sun shine, you have to weather the storm. If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. What cannot be altered must be borne, not blamed. He that can't endure the bad will not live to see the good. To struggle when hope is banished. To live when life's salt is gone! To dwell in a dream that's vanished- To endure, and go calmly on! A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind, and in fleeing them the cowardice of the heart. Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty. They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves with contentment. We must endure what fortune sends. People can bear anything. We must learn from life how to suffer it. This is courage in a man: to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends. Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. Obstacles cannot crush me, every obstacle yields to stern resolve. And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. - Bible Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible. There remain times when one can only endure. One lives on, one doesn't die, and the only thing that one can do is to fill one's mind and time as far as possible with the concerns of other people. It doesn't bring immediate peace, but it brings the dawn nearer. When I look at the kids training today ... I can tell which ones are going to do well. It's not necessarily the ones who have the most natural talent or who fall the least. Sometimes it's the kids who fall the most, and keep pulling themselves up and trying again. Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. It takes far less courage to kill yourself than it takes to make yourself wake up one more time. Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall. If I don't get off the mat, I'll lose the fight. For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again. - Bible Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure. Think of a fine painter attempting to capture an inner vision, beginning with one corner of the canvas, painting what he thinks should be there, not quite pulling it off, covering it over with white paint, and trying again, each time finding out what his painting isn't, until he finally finds out what it is. And when you finally do find out what one corner of your vision is, you're off and running. Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over. Regression in grief must be seen and supported as a means toward adaptation and health. To be happy, drop the words "if only" and substitute instead the words "next time." Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we learn to walk. Education is hanging around until you've caught on. Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. You go back to the gym and you just do it again and again until you get it right. As long as one keeps searching, the answers come. How many years you have to keep on doing, until you know what to do and how to do! There is no wisdom equal to that which comes after the event. Tolerate the ... process of coming to knowledge or certainty or clarity through sometimes apparently hopeless thickets of confusion or bewilderment. Learn not to be surprised or disheartened by the muddle you inhabit, and not to press too soon for a superficial reprieve. Learn to self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it. What can any of us do with his talent but try to develop his vision, so that through frequent failures we may learn better what we have missed in the past. All effort is in the last analysis sustained by faith that it is worth making. Competition is easier to accept if you realize it is not an act of oppression or abrasion. ... I've worked with my best friends in direct competition. Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps till the legend, "over steep ways to the stars," fulfills itself. The one who cares the most wins. ... That's how I knew I'd end up with everyone else waving the white flags and not me. That's how I knew I'd be the last person standing when it was all over. ... I cared the most. If I had refused to institute a negotiation or had not persevered in it, I would have been degraded in my own estimation as a man of honor. I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes. The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. When you're a professional, you come back no matter what happened the day before. We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough. ... What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties. Desire and hope will push us on toward the future. The champ may have lost his stuff temporarily or permanently, he can't be sure. When he can no longer throw his high hard one, he throws his heart instead. He throws something. He just doesn't walk off the mound and weep. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter; we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them. He turns not back who is bound to a star. What helps me go forward is that I stay receptive, I feel that anything can happen. There was a Texas Ranger one time who said that there's no stopping a man who knows he's in the right and keeps a-coming. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires ... courage. People with good intentions never give up! If I see a door comin' my way, I'm knockin' it down. And if I can't knock down the door, I'm sliding through the window. All my life I've been competing-and competing to win. I came to realize that in this way, this cancer was the toughest competition I had faced yet. I made up my mind that I was going to lick it all the way. I not only wasn't going to let it kill me, I wasn't even going to let it put me on the shelf. I have accepted fear as a part of life-specifically the fear of change. ... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back. ... Tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. - Bible The unifying of opposites is the eternal process. "Brave admiral, say but one good word: What shall we do when hope is gone?" The words leapt like a leaping sword: "Sail on! sail on! and on!" In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It's trying to live together afterwards that causes problems. We must dare, and dare again, and go on daring. Austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the least of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time. Grant me the courage not to give up, even though I think it is hopeless. I try. I am trying. I was trying. I will try. I shall in the meantime try. I sometimes have tried. I shall still by that time be trying. Hard times ain't quit and we ain't quit. All the sugar was in the bottom of the cup. I have often been adrift, but I have always stayed afloat. God helps those who persevere. - Koran Gnaw your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, gnaw it still. Like ships, men flounder time and time again. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it. If you stop struggling, then you stop life. One thing we learned. To make a start and keep plugging. When I had fights at school, the little while I went, I just bowed my neck and kept swinging until something hit the dirt. Sometimes it was me, but I always got up. Jesus taught that perseverance is the essential element of prayer. Men must be in earnest when they kneel at God's footstool. Too often we get faint-hearted and quit praying at the point when we ought to begin. We let go at the very point where we should hold on strongest. Our prayers are weak because they are not impassioned by an unfailing and resistless will. Be strong! It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong How hard the battle goes, the day how long Faint not-fight on! Tomorrow comes the song. Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be. Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. 
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