Achievement Quotes

All great works start with mistake. Ain’t no exception in this fact.

~ Sandra Newman

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

God can deliver you so well that some people won’t believe your testimony.

~ Shannon L. Alder

It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder―or impossible―to lose.

~ Sarah Dessen

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing, it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it.

~ Margaret Thatcher

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.

~ Malcolm Gladwell

The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasums, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at best know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.

~ Chinua Achebe

Those who succeed in an outstanding way seldom do so before the age of 40. More often, they do not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of 50.

~ Napoleon Hill

You are the greatest achievement of your own life.

~ Sarah Rees Brennan

Only the impossible is worth doing.

~ Akong Rinpoche

You are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can can play the 'Gloria'? No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.

~ Abraham Verghese

People pretend not to like grapes when the vines are too high for them to reach.

~ Marguerite De Navarre

But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something? Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you. Mediocrity's a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.

~ Tom Robbins

For almost a generation, psychologists around the world have been engaged in a spirited debate over a question that most of us would consider to have been settled years ago. The question is this: is there such a thing as innate talent? The obvious answer is yes. Not every hockey player born in January ends up playing at the professional level. Only some do – the innately talented ones. Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger role preparation seems to play.

~ Malcolm Gladwell

She could not descend to an existence where her brain would explode under the pressure of forcing itself not to outdistance incompetence. She could not function to the rule of: Pipe down-keep down-slow down-don't do your best, it is not wanted!

~ Ayn Rand

Not that I haven't leaped up into the blinding light of competence now and then. It's sustaining the altitude that defeats me.

~ Lois Mcmaster Bujold

With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.

~ Tahir Shah

It was possible in this wonderful city for that nameless little boy -for any of its millions- to have a decent chance to scale the walls and achieve what they wished. Wealth, rank or an imposing name counted for nothing. The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.

~ Moss Hart

Portia remembered her interview in the small office upstairs...in which she had been so shy, so terrified about not being good enough, not getting this thing, this chance, which she had only just discovered she wanted very badly.

~ Jean Hanff Korelitz

...no matter how much Theo achieves and acquires and out-dazzles everyone else, she never seems content. She's taught you that people who shine more lavishly that everyone else seem to be penalized by discontent, as if they're being punished for craving a brighter life. I've been knocked down so many times I can't remember the number plates, she said once.

~ Nikki Gemmell

To achieve something is better than not achieving.

~ Sam Winters

When you set your mind to achieve something, you must allow yourself the opportunity to get it done.

~ Tasha Hoggatt

You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.

~ Bhagavad Gita

She was one of those people who are famous beyond their actual achievement.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

What you achieve, endures throughout time

~ Rafik Schami

The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little. You've done well, and honourably.

~ M. J. Carter

It was only when I started to be myself that the music started to flow and people started to listen.

~ Sam Smith

Realize the joy there is in trying to accomplish the impossible.

~ Mani S. Sivasubramanian

Luck is just the result of a positive mental attitude.

~ Kevin J. Donaldson

a person who does not have respect for time, and does not have a sense of timing, can achieve little.

~ Verghese Kurien

Remember, for there to be any change in your life circumstances, you must change. You must improve yourself. You must develop your mind. You must change your company. If you want to fly like the eagles, then you have to make friends with the Eagles and not with chickens. You can’t be in the company of chickens and hope to fly like the Eagles someday. Life does not work that way.

~ Bien Sufficient

The problem with striving for the best, is that there will be always better than the best.

~ Rafaa Khiari

The achievement gap between children from high income and low income families is roughly 30-40% larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years ago. The class gap among students entering kindergarten was two to three times higher than the racial gap.

~ Robert D. Putnam

Why kill two birds with one stone? I go for the whole nestI am not satisfied with my work unless someone’s a bloody mess

~ Justin Bienvenue

No achievement is too small if it leads to another.

~ Kevin J. Donaldson

Hard work is the key to any achievement.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita