Wise Quotes about Effort

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence -
is the key to unlocking our potential.
- Winston Churchill

A little more persistence,
a little more effort, and
what seemed hopeless failure
may turn to glorious success.
- Elbert Hubbard

Ecstasy is our very nature;
not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary.
To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous.
It needs no effort to be ecstatic,
it needs great effort to be miserable.
That's why you look to tired,
because misery is really hard work;
to maintain it is really difficult,
because you are doing something against nature.
- Osho

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment,
full effort is full victory.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

It is only through labor and painful effort,
by grim energy and resolute courage,
that we move on to better things.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement
and the thrill of creative effort.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Not every difficult and dangerous thing
is suitable for training,
but only that which is conducive to success
in achieving the object of our effort.
- Epictetus

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort,
and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Satisfaction does not come with achievement, but with effort.
Full effort is full victory.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We can't control the impressions others form about us,
and the effort to do so only debases our character.
- Epictetus

Anything that costs you more hours of effort or worry
than it brings you hours of enjoyment
is a candidate for downsizing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Ask today as you consider the many choices in your view -
what is the highest and best use
of your talents, skills and abilities?
When you answer that, seize the opportunity
to sharpen those qualities even more sharply
by applying your focused effort.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Moral authority is never retained by
any attempt to hold on to it.
It comes without seeking and
is retained without effort.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others
will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
- Helen Keller

We all have an instinctive fear of the unseen.
Make a conscious effort to discover
and embrace the unfamiliar -
to view the unknown not as a lurking monster,
but as a glorious adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The best effort of a fine person
is felt after we have left their presence.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy,
the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child.
The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
- Emma Goldman

I know, to banish anger altogether
from one's breast is a difficult task.
It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort.
It can be done only by God's grace.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The effort to understand the universe is one
of the very few things that lifts human life
a little above the level of farce,
and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
- Steven Weinberg

If you want to be happy,
put your effort into controlling the sail, not the wind.
- Anonymous

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind;
it requires the same effort of the brain
that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.
- Helen Keller

Believe that none of the effort you put
into coming closer to God is ever wasted -
even if in the end you don't achieve
what you are striving for.
- Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid
for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems,
but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
- Herm Albright

Sharpen your pencil as you create the story of your life.
Ask today as you consider the many choices in your view -
what is the highest and best use
of your talents, skills and abilities?
When you answer that,
seize the opportunity to sharpen those qualities
even more sharply by applying your focused effort.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it.
My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil,
but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good
and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good,
that it may prevail.
- Helen Keller

What is human warfare but just this;
an effort to make the laws of God and
nature take sides with one party.
- Henry David Thoreau

In most communities it is illegal
to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly.
Should it not be considered serious international misconduct
to manufacture a general war scare
in an effort to achieve local political aims?
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Any change that comes about in your life
will be primarily because of your own efforts.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Thinkers do not accept the inevitable;
they turn their efforts toward changing it.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Success is the sum of small efforts,
repeated day in and day out.
- Robert Collier

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror
which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
- John F. Kennedy

Give your time and efforts freely or not at all.
When you are tempted to say,
"Oh, if I have to, I'll skip my golf game
and watch my daughter play soccer," don't do it.
Either generate the heart-felt emotion
to make the free-will gift,
"I'd love to watch your game today, Sandy,"
or the honesty to decline the request gracefully.
Martyrdom doesn't create happiness
for any of the parties involved.
An honest, "No" is preferable to a coerced "Yes."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa,
whereby its leaders combine in their efforts
to solve the problems of this continent.
I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests,
of all our great wildernesses.
- Nelson Mandela

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain,
and most fools do.
- Benjamin Franklin

If you don't know where you're going,
any road will take you there.
- Lewis Carroll
(Alice in Wonderland)

Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau

Much in life can be seen as ugly or beautiful - it's our choice.
Why would we choose to see any part of life as ugly?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The dream you are living is your creation.
It is your perception of reality that you can change at any time.
- don Miguel Ruiz

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it
and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most everything in life is about our
point-of-view rather than any absolute.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When I examine myself and my methods of thought,
I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy
has meant more to me than
any talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

When you are offended at any man's fault,
turn to yourself and study your own failings.
Then you will forget your anger.
- Epictetus

When any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed,
say: "There is another way of looking at this."
- A Course In Miracles

Nurture your mind with great thoughts,
for you will never go any higher than you think.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Any man who reads too much
and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Albert Einstein

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex...
It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage
to move in the opposite direction.
- Albert Einstein

Any statement that is self-serving
is likely to contain untruths.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is only one time that is important - NOW!
It is the most important time because
it is the only time that we have any power.
- Leo Tolstoy

You may be always victorious if
you will never enter into any contest
where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.
- Epictetus

Any human being who is becoming independent of conditionings,
of religions, scriptures, prophets and messiahs, has arrived home.
He has found the treasure which was hidden in his own being.
- Osho

Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution.
If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds.
- Norman Vincent Peale

You can conquer almost any fear
if you will only make up your mind to do so.
For remember, fear doesn't exist
anywhere except in the mind.
- Dale Carnegie

When you are in any contest,
you should work as if there were -
to the very last minute - a chance to lose it.
This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it.
Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return.
Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?
- Epictetus

The greatest discovery of any generation
is that a human being
can alter his life by
altering his attitude
- William James

If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability to get
the other person's point of view
and see things from that person's angle
as well as from your own.
- Henry Ford

The most common way people give up their power
is by thinking they don't have any.
- Alice Walker

You must not under any pretense allow
your mind to dwell on any thought
that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind.
- Emmet Fox

"Be Prepared."
"Be prepared for what?"
"Why, for any old thing."
- Robert Baden-Powell,
the founder of Scouting.
[as quoted in the Boy Scout Handbook]

Begin to act from your dominion.
Declare the truth by telling yourself
that there is nothing to be afraid of,
that you no longer entertain any images of fear.
- Ernest Holmes

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Wisdom Quotes