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


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








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


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





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, @HawaiianLife


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


If you have an idea of what you want to do in your future, you must go at it with almost monastic obsession, be it music, the ballet or just a basic degree. You have to go at it single-mindedly and let nothing get in your way. ~Henry Rollins


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





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


If you've climbed the jutting trees to your lofty goal,
you've far outdone the unscathed ladder climbers.
~Terri Guillemets


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








You're either changing your life or you're not. No waiting for this or that or better weather or other hurdles. Hurdles are the change. ~Terri Guillemets


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 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





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


Do not waste a minute, not a second, in trying to demonstrate to others the merit of your own performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it, but you can labor steadily on to something which needs no advocate but itself. ~Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Letter to a Young Contributor," The Atlantic Monthly, April 1862


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)





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





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. ~Proverb


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