Quotessence
Home / Topics / Effort Quotes

Effort Quotes

Browse 6933 quotes about Effort.

Related topics

IfsPeopleThinkingMenWorldWayTryingKnowsMadeGivingWantShouldNeedsMindHumansHas BeensMayResultsHardLongLittlesBelieveFirstsMeanStatesWellsIndividualYearsFeelsCountryImportantDoePersonsBest EffortKindHelpingSelfArtGoalLooksRealEndsWritingActionChildrenEnergyEnoughWarGovernmentDoneAchieveConsciousInspirationalIdeasMatterProblemStillsHard WorkWinningWholeMomentsMotivationalStruggleSeemsHeartSuccessfulTodayEasyDesireFocusHappensLawFactsMightPracticeFormGreaterOrderTwoValuesSupportForceMovingSaidShowsAmountSocialSometimesTeamTogetherDifferentDifficultReasonAbleOpportunityAbilityBookPoliticalRunningSportsmore

Effort Quotes

“Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.”

PeopleThinkingWritingSelfEyeGrowsLossEffortPayWatchesWrittenHabitProtectConsciousPraiseInvestmentCriticalSubtleSelf ConsciousThrough The EyesDiffusion
Book:Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler
Create image

“We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.”

ThinkingHumansWarEnoughProcessEffortRaceBreakDemocracyProgressSocietyRevolutionTownsDrivenAwakeningMinoritiesNow And ThenReformationHaltBarbariansBreak ThroughFrench RevolutionHuman ProgressHorde
Author:H. L. Mencken
Create image

“Training is doing your homework. It's not exciting. More often than not it's tedious. There is certainly no glory in it. But you stick with it, over time, and incrementally through no specific session, your body changes. Your mind becomes calloused to effort. You stop thinking of running as difficult or interesting or magical. It just becomes what you do. It becomes a habit.”

ThinkingMindBodyRunningDifficultInterestingEffortHabitGloryTrainingExcitingSticksYour BodySessionHomeworkTediousInspirational RunningChanging Your MindBody Change
Author:Jack Edmonds
Create image

“We must dispel the negative and harmful atmosphere that has been created by avaricious and unprincipled realtors who engage in "blockbusting." If we had in America really serious efforts to break down discrimination in housing, and at the same time a concerted program of government aid to improve housing for Negroes, I think that many white people would be surprised at how many Negroes would choose to live among themselves, exactly as Poles and Jews and other ethnic groups do.”

PeopleIfsThinkingHas BeensGovernmentWould BeAmericaWhiteEffortBreakGroupsSeriousNegativeProgramJewAidsDiscriminationAtmosphereBreaking DownHousingEthnic GroupsRealtorsGovernment Aid
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
Create image

“When you feel the rise of unpleasant emotions, take a moment and make an effort to identify their source. The answers are far more available than you may have previously believed. Accept such feelings as your own in the moment. Do not shove them underneath, ignore them or try to substitute what you think of as good thoughts.”

ThinkingFeelsTryingMayMomentsFeelingsAnswersEffortEmotionAcceptingSourceAvailableSubstitutesGood Thoughts
Book:The Nature of Personal Reality (A Seth Book): Specific, Practical Techniques for Solving Everyday Problems and Enriching the Life You Know
Create image

“It seems like I always wrote, I just didn't think of it as a career choice. I just liked to tell stories ... to myself, to pen pals (I had a lot of them, all over the world). Of course this was in the days before computers were everywhere, and anyone could access the Web. You had to make an effort keeping up a correspondence, and the arrival of the mail once a day was a big deal. I think if modern technology had been around when I was a kid, I would never have left my bedroom except to take the dogs out for their run three times a day.”

IfsThinkingWorldStoriesBigsSeemsRunningKidsChoicesThreeCoursesLeftDealsEffortCareersTechnologyModernDogComputerAccessPensMailBedroomThree TimesBig DealArrivalsCorrespondencePalsModern TechnologyCareers Choices
Author:Charles de Lint
Create image

“Do not entertain the notion that you ought to advance in your prayer. If you do, you will only find you have put on the brake instead of the acceleration. All real progress in spiritual things comes gently, imperceptibly, and is the work of God. Our crude efforts spoil it. Know yourself for the childish, limited and dependent soul you are. Remember that the only growth which matters happens without our knowledge and that trying to stretch ourselves is both dangerous and silly. Think of the Infinite Goodness, never of your own state.”

IfsThinkingKnowsTryingRealSoulMatterStatesGodHappensChristianRememberSpiritualReligionGrowthWorkPrayerEffortChristianityKnowledgeProgressDangerousOughtGoodnessInfinitePersonal GrowthNotionSillyGentleDependentKnow YourselfAdvancementSpoilOur PrayersStretchingCrudeAdvancingBrakeAccelerationChildishness
Author:Evelyn Underhill
Create image

“The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences. Therefore, as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat that we seem to think we pose to each other's personal prestige, and concentrate our united efforts toward solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America.”

PeopleThinkingDoneProblemSeemsAmericaDifferencesHurtUnitedEffortLeaderWorryBiggerThreatPrestigeBeing DoneStop WorryingUnendingOrganizational
Author:Malcolm X
Create image

“I think that it is a fallacy to suppose that helpful cooperation in the future will be assured by the attempted compulsion of an inflexible rule. Rather will such cooperation depend upon the fostering of firm friendships springing from an appreciation of community ideals, interests, and purposes, and such friendships are more likely to be promoted by freedom of conference than by the effort to create hard and fast engagements.”

ThinkingHardPurposeInterestCommunityEffortDependsIdealsAppreciationFirmHelpfulCooperationEngagementAssuredConferencesCompulsionFallacyFostering
Author:Charles Evans Hughes
Create image

“I don't know who the great lawyers are, and I presume you can't get to them. I know of no case where it can be said for certain that they took part. They defend some people, but you can't get them to do that through your own efforts, they only defend the ones they want to defend. But I assume a case they take on must have progressed beyond the lower court. It's better not to think of them at all, otherwise you'll find the consultations with the other lawyers, their advice and their assistance, extremely disgusting and useless.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWantSaidCertainEffortCasesAdviceCourtAssumingLawyerUselessDisgustingAssistanceConsultation
Author:Franz Kafka
Create image

“Statistically, it would seem improbable that any mathematician or scientist, at the age of 66, would be able through continued research efforts, to add much to his or her previous achievements. However I am still making the effort and it is conceivable that with the gap period of about 25 years of partially deluded thinking providing a sort of vacation my situation may be atypical. Thus I have hopes of being able to achieve something of value through my current studies or with any new ideas that come in the future.”

ThinkingYearsMayStillsIdeasSeemsWould BeAgeAbleValuesEffortSituationStudyAchievePeriodsAchievementResearchScientistAddCurrentsGapsVacationProvidingNew IdeasMathematicianImprobableHaving HopeDeluded
Author:John Forbes Nash
Create image

“The impulse to think, to philosophize and spin beauty and brilliance out of mind and soul, is somehow the offspring of resistance of an effort to overcome an apparently insurmountable obstacle. Hence cultural creativeness is more likely to flourish in an atmosphere of restriction, of an imposed pattern of thought and behavior, than in one of total freedom.”

ThinkingMindSoulEffortBehaviorOvercomingPatternsObstaclesResistanceImpulseAtmosphereRestrictionBrillianceOffspringInsurmountableCreativeness
Author:Eric Hoffer
Create image

“Violent resistance against the power of the state is the last resort of the minority in its effort to break loose from the oppression of the majority. ... The citizen must not be so narrowly circumscribed in his activities that, if he thinks differently from those in power, his only choice is either to perish or to destroy the machinery of state.”

IfsThinkingStatesLastsChoicesEffortBreakDemocracyViolenceCitizensActivityEconomicsMajorityViolentResistanceOppressionMinoritiesMachineryResorts
Book:The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism
Create image

“To be disciplined does not mean being silent, abstaining, or doing only what one thinks one may undertake without risk; it is not the art of eluding responsibility; it means acting in compliance with orders received, and therefore finding in one's own mind, by effort and reflection, the possibility to carry out such orders. It also means finding in one's own will the energy to face the risks involved in execution.”

ThinkingMindMayMeanDoeArtFacesOrderEnergyEffortActingResponsibilityRiskPossibilityInvolvedFindingsReflectionSilentExecutionRisk ItComplianceAbstaining
Author:Ferdinand Foch
Create image

“Vibrations never lie. A person could be saying one thing and yet, thinking another. Get to the point where you pay closer attention to the vibrations you are receiving rather than the words you are hearing. Intuition is one of the most valuable mental tools you possess. Begin to consciously use it. Your rewards will be worth the effort.”

ThinkingPersonsUseLyingEffortPayAttentionOne ThingToolsRewardsValuableHearingIntuitionReceivingVibrationsNever Lie
Author:Bob Proctor
Create image

“Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain: what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty.”

ThinkingWritingMayHas BeensLastsValuesCausesEffortGraceCostDelightProofInventionVainJudgementLabourFacultyNoveltyUnwillingVigorousFertileDiligent
Book:The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with his life, and notes on his Lives of the poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In eleven volumes ...
Create image

“To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know.”

ThinkingKnowsNeedsYearsMindKindReadingEffortTalkingActivityMathematicsBusyMathMathematicalContemplationReasoningBehaviourSimplestNewtonNot TalkingCalculating
Author:George Spencer-Brown
Create image

“Scholars have been arguing for a long time whether the Soviet Union could have been turned into some kind of social democracy. I doubt it myself. I think what Gorbachev didn't quite understand, until it was too late, is that his efforts at change unleashed new, certrifical forces he hadn't counted on. He opened the door a crack and a huge wind blew it open.”

ThinkingKindLongHas BeensForceSocialEffortDemocracyDoubtDoorsWindHugeLateLong TimeUnionsArguingToo LateCracksSovietScholarSoviet UnionCould Have BeenUnleashedGorbachevSocial Democracy
Author:David Hoffman
Create image

“I was used to being disliked as a kid. Not that I didn't deserve it: I was a pretty sad and unappealing creature, and still am, I guess. It's sort of simplistic to think that one tries to make stuff that accounts for one's repulsiveness as a person, but there's some truth to it. So, when I read something unfavorable, I always take it deeply personally. It's as if my efforts have been in vain, and I should just quit.”

IfsThinkingShouldTryingPersonsHas BeensStillsKidsUsedStuffEffortCreaturesDeserveAccountsQuittingVain
Author:Chris Ware
Create image

“Remember, most of the things you think you need are ego trips designed to bolster your image and your perception of security.... You'll waste a lot of energy satisfying your ego only to find that, as soon as it's got what it wants, it ignores all your efforts and promptly nails another list of demands to your forehead. The ego will always try to force you to slave for its vision. I wouldn't stand for that BS if I were you.”

IfsThinkingWantNeedsTryingRememberEnergyForceEffortVisionSecurityDemandEgoWastePerceptionSlaveListsSatisfyingNailsForeheadsEgo Trip
Author:Stuart Wilde
Create image

“Such is the nature of the marriage relation that a breach once made cannot be healed, and it is the height of folly to waste one's life in vain efforts to make a binary compound of two diverse elements. What would we think of the chemist who should sit twenty years trying to mix oil and water, and insist upon it that his happiness depended upon the result of the experiment?”

ThinkingShouldTryingYearsMadeTwoWaterResultsEffortMarriageWasteElementsRelationTwentiesOilExperimentsVainHeightFollyDiverseHealedCompoundsChemistBreachBinaryOil And Water
Book:Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences
Create image

“Our efforts will only be effective if ordinary citizens in other countries have confidence that the United States respects their privacy too. And the leaders of our close friends and allies deserve to know that if I want to learn what they think about an issue, I will pick up the phone and call them, rather than turning to surveillance.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWantCountryStatesUnitedEffortLeaderUnited StatesIssuesCitizensOrdinaryPicksDeservePhonesPrivacyAlliesOther CountriesSurveillanceHave ConfidenceNsaClose FriendsOrdinary Citizens
Author:Barack Obama
Create image