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Quotations about accomplishment
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
When I go into my garden with a spade and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health, that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Man the Reformer,” lecture, Boston (25 Jan 1841)
(Source)
A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Proverbs in Prose (1819)
A person who has not done one half his day’s work by ten o’clock runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848) British novelist, poet [pseud. Ellis Bell]
Wuthering Heights, ch. 7 (1847) [Nelly]
(Source)
It is not yours to finish the task, but neither are you free to set it aside.
Tarfon (fl. 1st-2nd C AD) Jewish rabbi, sage
Mishnah, Pirkei Avot 2:15-16
Alt. trans.:
- It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but neither are you free to absolve yourself from it.
- It is not up to you to finish the task, but you are not free to avoid it.
- We need not finish the task but neither can we desist from it.
- Although I am not free to avoid doing the work, it is not always necessary that I finish the task.
- You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
You should make something. You should bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. It doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a table or a film or gardening — everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, “I did that.”
Ricky Gervais (b. 1961) English comedian, actor, director, writer
Interview with Scott Raab, Esquire (12 Jan 2012)
(Source)
Variant: "If you spend your days doing what you love, it is impossible to fail. So I go about my days trying to bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. And then everyone gets furious about it. And then I sit back and say, 'I did that!'" [Biography interview (11 Jan 2016)]
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet, dramatist, critic
Imitation of Horace, Book 3, ode 29, l. 65 (1685)
We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe: can we not take the leap?
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (28 Oct 1841)
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible is that which takes a little longer.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
(Attributed)
Quoted in Reader's Digest (Nov 1939), but without citation. The sentiment has a number of antecedents (see discussion here).
Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
(Source)
The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.
Dwight Morrow (1873-1931) American businessman, diplomat, politician
(Attributed)
Quoted in Mary Margaret McBride, The Story of Dwight W. Morrow (1930).
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished?
Yes: work never begun.
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms (1955)
Every man who is high up loves to think that he has done it all himself; and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that.
James Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish novelist and dramatist
What Every Woman Knows, Act 4 (1908)
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It is 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 (1925-2013) British Prime Minister (1979-90), research chemist, barrister, politician
(Attributed)
There is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care a straw who gets the credit for it.
Charles Edward "C. E." Montague (1867-1928) English journalist, novelist, essayist
Disenchantment, ch. 15 (1922)
For a thing to remain undone nothing more is needed than to think it done.
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish writer.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)
To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.
Anatole France (1844-1924) French poet, journalist, novelist, Nobel Laureate [pseud. of Jaques-Anatole-François Thibault]
Speech, Académie Française (24 Dec 1896)
Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged — will ultimately judge himself — on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
“Day of Affirmation,” address, University of Capetown, South Africa (6 Jun 1966)
(Source)
You can’t do the biggest things in this world unless you handle men; and you can’t handle men if you’re not in sympathy with them; and sympathy begins in humility.
George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937) American journalist, author, magazine editor
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son (1901)
No pain, no palm;
No thorns, no throne;
No gall, no glory;
No cross, no crown.William Penn (1644-1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, statesman
“No Cross, No Crown” (1682)
Originally written while a prisoner in the Tower of London (1668-69). See Quarles (1821).
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
“For an Autograph,” st. 5 (1868)
(Source)
There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the general rule.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
(Source)
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
Kavanagh: A Tale, ch. 1 (1849)
