Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We live in a time of short attention spans and long stories. The short attention spans are seen as inevitable, the consequence of living our lives in thrall to flickering streams of information. The long stories are the surprise, as is the persistence of the audience for them.
How then can we account for the persistence of the myth that inside the empty nest lives a shattered and depressed shell of a woman--a woman in constant pain because her children no longer live under her roof? Is it possible that a notion so pervasive is, in fact, just a myth?
Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feel motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.
The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying.
The Keynesian prescription for unemployment rests on the persistence of a 'money illusion' among workers, i.e., on the belief that while, through unions and government, they will keep money wage rates from falling, they will also accept a fall in real wage rates via higher prices.
The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers -- of persistence, concentration, and insight -- to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.
Persistence is probably the single most common quality of high achievers. They simply refuse to give up. They longer you hang in there, the greater the chance that something will happen in your favor. No matter how hard it seems, the longer you persist the more likely your success.
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it's dreams; it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.
The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.
I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a 'transformer' in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.
When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.
There is one prevailing key to success. Do what you resolve to do. Then you'll be a success. If you can discipline yourself to follow through on your promises to yourself, your self-esteem goes up. Persistence is self-discipline in action. Self-discipline is the foundation of self-confidence .
I think writers always want to be taken seriously as writers, but it's not always possible. There's a difference between persistence and banging your head against the same wall a hundred times. Sometimes it's better to look away from the wall and see what else might be available that's easier.
The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.
That's like a dream come true. To be able to hire friends, to shoot a movie in the neighborhood where you grew up. To have it released. It's actually a dream. How many people can say that their first film got distributed and out there? What are the odds? My persistence made the odds work for me.
You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
God heals, and the doctor takes the fees. Energy and persistence conquer all things. He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! Oh, it's easier to keep Holidays than Commandments. Well done is better than well said.
Good design today requires more vision (a larger point of view versus the single brilliant idea), more consistency (a deeper underlying structure of language and form versus the simple, uniform application of visual elements) and more patience (persistence over time versus creative authoritarianism).
Most people with a big idea, great talent and/or something to say don't get lucky at first. Or second. Or even third. It's so easy to conclude that if you're not lucky, you're not good. So persistence becomes an essential element of good, because without persistence, you never get a chance to get lucky.
Memory is a dead thing. Memory is not truth and cannot ever be, because truth is always alive, truth is life; memory is persistence of that which is no more. It is living in ghost world, but it contains us, it is our prison. In fact it is us. Memory creates the knot, the complex called the I and the ego
We deprive our children, our charges, of persistence. What I am trying to say is that we need to fail, children need to fail, we need to feel sad, anxious and anguished. If we impulsively protect ourselves and our children, as the feel-good movement suggests, we deprive them of learning-persistence skills.
The level of competition on 'Iron Chef' was very intense. In fact, I feel like the show provides chefs with a stamp of approval and in many ways lets them know that 'they've arrived.' It was a tough journey, to say the least, but in the end, it provided me with an example how hard work and persistence pays off.
Talent isn't enough. You need motivation-and persistence, too: what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and arrogance. When you're young, plain old poverty can be enough, along with an insatiable hunger for recognition. You have to have that feeling of "I'll show them." If you don't have it, don't become a writer.
As the leader of a country, you are not free to enjoy the luxury of such feelings. The Afghan people want peace, which requires persistence. We are determined to defend our country, and the whole region and the entire world understands the justice of our cause and the principled way in which we have engaged in it.
Some people mistake grit for sheer persistence - charging up the same hill again and again. But that's not quite what I mean by the word 'grit.' You want to minimize friction and find the most effective, most efficient way forward. You might actually have more grit if you treat your energy as a precious commodity.
I had developed a relationship with one of the anti-abortion sidewalk counselors who stood in front of my facility. We talked regularly through the fence and she had asked me to go have coffee with her one day. I was impressed with her persistence and, honestly, I thought I would really like her if I got to know her.
One thing we see a lot is this - the idea kids have now that they don't have to go to college. They don't have to get a real job. They feel they can become 'Internet famous' by taking selfies. They think they can become a star through social media. We see that a lot. You can succeed. But it takes time and persistence.
I've always wanted, notionally, to be a mother. And I was certain I would be, because everyone I know, gay or straight, married or single, rich or not so much, who truly wants to have a child figures out a way, some way, to have one - whether through adoption, fostering, surrogacy, fertility, accident, or persistence.
Lying is common in social life, often done for benign purposes, seldom draws severe sanctions, and many of the most notable leaders, including the late Steve Jobs, were consummate prevaricators. Told with enough persistence and conviction, what was once untrue can become true, in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way.
From the hindsight of history George Washington seems larger than life, more statuesque than man. Too bad! Washington's greatness as a leader was courage under fire and persistence in the face of obstacles. Yet even he at times doubted himself. But he put those doubts aside and forged ahead, convinced of his noble purpose.
Growing up in a group home, and with an undiagnosed learning disability to boot, the odds of success were not on my side. But when I joined the high school football team, I learned the value of discipline, focus, persistence, and teamwork - all skills that have proven vital to my career as a C.E.O. and social entrepreneur.
It is the manner of (Cadel) Evan's triumph that has particularly endeared him to his countrymen and women... Australians place a premium on persistence in adversity... His win in the year's tour was much more than an exhibition of pure sporting talent; it was a display of grit that will long be treasured by all who saw it.
I warn you, Kelsey, that I'm an extremely patient man. I've had extensive practice in waiting out the enemy. My life as a tiger has taught me that attentive persistence and focused diligence always pay off. Consider yourself forewarned, priyatama. I'm on the hunt. I've caught your scent, and I won't be thwarted in my course.
The key to success in any kind of start up is your level of persistence. It's not so much your intellect. The Zuckerburg's, Pages and Brins, that succeed have such a level of belief in what they are doing that they will put up with the kind of crap that most people won't put up with, they are incredibly persistent and resilient.
TV, and the culture it anchors, masks and drowns out the subtle and vital information contact with the real world once provided. There are lessons, enormous lessons, lessons that may be crucial to the planet's persistence as a green and diverse place and also to the happiness of it's inhabitants-that nature teaches and TV can't.
At every crossway on the path that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past. Let us have no fear that the fair towers of former days be sufficiently defended. The least that the most timid among us can do is not to add to the immense dead weight that nature drags along.
But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.
Nothing is as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate. The world doesn’t need any more gray. On the other hand, we can’t get enough color. Mediocrity is nobody’s goal and perfection shouldn’t be either. We’ll never be perfect. But remember these three P’s: Passion + Persistence = Possibility.
The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind.
No one ever achieved a goal by being interested in its achievement. One must be committed. In fact, in studying the source of people's success, I've found that persistence overshadows even talent as the most valued and effective resource in creating and shaping the quality of life. Most people give up a maddening five feet from their goal!
Throughout human history, in any great endeavour requiring the common effort of many nations and men and women everywhere, we have learned - it is only through seriousness of purpose and persistence that we ultimately carry the day. We might liken it to riding a bicycle. You stay upright and move forward so long as you keep up the momentum.
Pain, I came to feel, might well prove to be the sole proof of the persistence of consciousness within the flesh, the sole physical expression of consciousness. As my body acquired muscle, and in turn strength, there was gradually born within me a tendency towards the positive acceptance of pain, and my interest in physical suffering deepened.
At the beginning of a novel, a writer needs confidence, but after that what's required is persistence. These traits sound similar. They aren't. Confidence is what politicians, seducers and currency speculators have, but persistence is a quality found in termites. It's the blind drive to keep on working that persists after confidence breaks down.
O may I join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence; live in pulses stirred to generosity, in deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn for miserable aims that end with self, in thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, and with their mild persistence urge men's search to vaster issues.
The line between failure and success is so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a person has thrown up his or her 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.
See, Sway, that’s what you get for flunking your pilot’s test six times…which I’m pretty sure is a record of some sort. If not for the actual flunking, definitely for the persistence in pursuing that which you obviously have no talent for. Personally, I wouldn’t let you fly a remote-control kid’s plane. (Vik) Shut up before I find a can opener. (Sway)
For many of us, conversion is an ongoing process and not a onetime event that results from a powerful or dramatic experience. Line upon line and precept upon precept, gradually and almost imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds become aligned with the will of God. Conversion unto the Lord requires both persistence and patience.
I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism. I've come to the position that in the complete absence of any supporting data whatsover for the persistence of the individual in some spiritual form, it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to amend that if I find out otherwise.
Tim Price continues to explore and develop his deeply personal approach to music. Through the years his persistence, determination and passion has enabled him to create a stellar reputation as a multiple woodwind master, composer, producer, author and last but not least educator. Tim is one of the best musicians active today and I'm happy to say he's my friend.