Effort Quotes and Sayings

Effort Quotes

You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic. ~Author Unknown

All the so-called "secrets of success" will not work unless you do. ~Author Unknown

You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind. ~Author Unknown

Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more. ~Edward H. Harriman

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest. ~J.G. Holland

The one thing that matters is the effort. It continues, whereas the end to be attained is but an illusion of the climber, as he fares on and on from crest to crest; and once the goal is reached it has no meaning. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have. ~Coleman Cox, 1922 (Thanks, Garson O'Toole of quoteinvestigator.com!)

Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

I've got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end. ~Larry Bird

The difference between try and triumph is a little umph. ~Author Unknown

Many an opportunity is lost because a man is out looking for four-leaf clovers. ~Author Unknown

No one understands that you have given everything. You must give more. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

The reason most people do not recognize an opportunity when they meet it is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and looking like Hard Work. ~Author unknown, printed uncredited in Logansport Pharos Tribune (Indiana), May 18th 1921, later commonly attributed to Thomas Edison (Thanks, Garson O'Toole of quoteinvestigator.com!)

Men are made stronger on realization that the helping hand they need is at the end of their own arm. ~Sidney J. Phillips

The person who is waiting for something to turn up might start with their shirt sleeves. ~Garth Henrichs

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. ~Attributed to both Vidal Sassoon and Donald Kendall

Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat. ~Ann Landers

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work. ~George Bernard Shaw

Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. ~Swami Sivananda

Now I know, a refuge never grows

from a chin in the hand and a thoughtful pose

Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.

~Indigo Girls

There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway. ~Mark Burnett

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all. ~Sam Ewing

Though the barriers of life seem formidable, we find when we challenge them that they have no will. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it. ~Author Unknown

 

   

 

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. ~Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. ~Abraham Lincoln

The footprint of the owner is the best manure. ~English Proverb

Those at the top of the mountain didn't fall there. ~Author Unknown

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. ~Will Rogers

All that you do,

do with your might.

Things done by halves

are never done right.

~Author Unknown

We all have a path to take; sometimes it's hidden under the weeds, so you might have to work a little. ~Mike Dolan, www.hawaiianlife.com

Most of us can easily do two things at once; what's all but impossible is to do one thing at once. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it. ~Margaret Thatcher

The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen. ~Sarah Brown

Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment. ~Heywood Hale Broun

Give your dreams all you've got and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you. ~William James

If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and Earth will pause to say, Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gift, like genius, I often think only means an infinite capacity for taking pains. ~Jane Ellice Hopkins

If you feel you are down on your luck, check the level of your effort. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. ~Emile Zola

We work for praise, and dawdle once we have it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. ~José Ortega y Gassett

People know you for what you've done, not for what you plan to do. ~Author Unknown

The elevator to success is not running; you must climb the stairs. ~Zig Ziglar

Most people, upon reaching the top, look down and enjoy the view. The smart money is on looking up and finding new mountains to climb. ~Jeb Dickerson, www.howtomatter.com

We gain no easier advantage than by relentlessly pursuing our goal while others pursue an advantage. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

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.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My morning choices are having a good tussle. Procrastination was winning, but Make Your Bed & Good Breakfast just kicked his butt. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, www.wildthymecreative.com (2009 tweet, @wildthyme)

Plough deep while sluggards sleep. ~Benjamin Franklin

Man stands for long time with mouth open before roast duck flies in. ~Chinese Saying

The trick to playing second fiddle is to play it like second Stradivarius. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

The view is better when it is earned. ~Author Unknown

For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. ~T.S. Eliot

There are no easy methods of learning difficult things; the method is to close your door, give out that you are not at home, and work. ~Joseph de Maistre

Yes, to be a good parent, you have to sacrifice, but this is not a requirement of parenting, it is a requirement of being good at something. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor. ~Ulysses S. Grant

He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody. ~Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961

Success is a ladder you cannot climb with your hands in your pockets. ~American Proverb

God gave us two ends — one to sit on and one to think with. Success depends on which one you use. Head you win, tail you lose. ~Author Unknown

Doors don't slam open. ~John M. Shanahan, The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less)

Sometimes in life you have an appointment with destiny, and sometimes you just have to get destiny to squeeze you in. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age. ~Gloria Pitzer

It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don't have to. ~Walter Linn

Many people think they want things, but they don't really have the strength, the discipline. They are weak. I believe that you get what you want if you want it badly enough. ~Sophia Loren

Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still. ~Chinese Proverb

We lack resolve and blame fate, mistaking the drift for the tides. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

They indeed are fools who are satisfied with the fruits of their past effort and do not engage themselves in self-effort now. ~Swami Venkatesananda

[Y]our life is a journey, not a rest. You are travelling to the promised land, from the cradle to the grave. ~The Sunday at Home, December 7th 1854

No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune. ~Plutarch

He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him. ~Dutch Proverb

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short. ~Confucius, Analects