Effort

"In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized."

"Inscribe all human effort with one word, Artistry’s haunting curse, the Incomplete!"

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

"I didn't think that working hard and wanting something that's out of your control would be that bothersome to people. It was just really disappointing for me."

"Struggling. How many people in life have it easy? I don't care what you do for a living. I don't believe I'm gifted, like Clemente, or Cedeno, or Mantle. About 10% of the ballplayers are gifted. For the other 90% of us, it's a struggle."

"To rank the effort above the prize may be called love."

"Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil."

"Those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes."

"Somebody said that it couldn't be done, But he with a chuckle replied "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one wouldn't say so till he'd tried. he buckled right in with the trace of a grin his face. If he worried he hid it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn't be done, and he did it."

"The mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort."

"Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it — so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes clear out, so it comes clear in. In business sometimes prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose."

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

"If there is effort, there is always accomplishment."

"He has called on the best that was in us. There was no such thing as half-trying. Whether it was running a race or catching a football, competing in school—we were to try. And we were to try harder than anyone else. We might not be the best, and none of us were, but we were to make the effort to be the best. “After you have done the best you can,” he used to say, “the hell with it.”"

"The smallest effort is not lost, Each wavelet on the ocean tost Aids in the ebb-tide or the flow; Each rain-drop makes some floweret blow; Each struggle lessens human woe."

"Give Me leisure, all the time Maecenas found For Horace and his Virgil, and I'll try To build a masterpiece destined to live And save my name from ashes. When the ground Is poor, the ox works listlessly; rich soil Tires, but there's satisfaction then in toil."

"To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals — this alone is worth the struggle."

"Verily, the Hour is coming but I am about to make it manifest so that every soul may be rewarded as it strives."

"And that the human being attains only what he strives for."

"The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach."

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

"Do not attempt to accomplish greater results by a greater effort of your little understanding, but by a greater understanding of your little effort. The greater your understanding of the power within yourself, the less effort you need to make in order to achieve."

"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim."

"These ceremonies and the National Statuary Hall will teach the youth of the land in succeeding generations as they come and go that the chief end of human effort in a sublunary view should be usefulness to mankind, and that all true fame which should be perpetuated by public pictures, statues, and monuments, is to be acquired only by noble deeds and high achievements and the establishment of a character founded upon the principles of truth, uprightness, and inflexible integrity."