Quotes about Effort

When you do your work better To-day than Yesterday you realize your genuine Capacity and know that there is no actual Perfection except the Perfection of doing better To-day than Yesterday.

We are not the masters of our own destinies. We are called to plan and strategize, to work and live active lives, to attempt things that are beyond us and tackle challenges that stretch us to the limit. Yet the outcome of our efforts, even our ability to exert ourselves, is always in God's hands.

I'm going to mess up. But I'm going to get back, you know, and get after it and try to do better the next day.

I feel like every day, every minute I have to make the most of.

Making an effort at the wrong time or place dissipates our energy.

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

I firmly believe in luck. And I noticed: the more I work, the luckier I become.

The Need to Win When an archer is shooting for nothing He has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle He is already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold He goes blind Or sees two targets — He is out of his mind. His skill has not changed, But the prize Divides him. He cares, He thinks more of winning Than of shooting — And the need to win Drains him of power.

If you persist in trying To attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift!) If you persist in making effort To obtain what effort cannot get; If you persist in reasoning About what cannot be understood, You will be destroyed By the very thing you seek.

We should not, however, judge the value of our meditation by "how we feel." A hard and apparently fruitless meditation may in fact be much more valuable than one that is easy, happy, enlightened and apparently a big success.

Only a man who works purely for God can at the same time do a very good job and leave the results of the job to God alone.

Greatness is never achieved nor dreams realized apart from great discipline.