Perseverance, Determination, Achievement and Success

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work so most people don't recognize them.

-Ann Landers

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

-Aristotle

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

-Winston Churchill

Failure is success if we learn from it.

-Malcolm Forbes

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.

-John Foster Dulles

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

-Theodore Roosevelt

People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. when they beleive in themselves they have the first secret of success.

-Norman Vincent Peale

Nothing will work unless you do.

-John Wooden 

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

-Thomas Jefferson

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream. Discover.

-Mark Twain

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

-Bill Cosby

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

—Lao-Tze 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

-Goethe

If you focus on the obstacles, then you give them more power.
Instead focus on your purpose, on your most authentic and fundamental intentions.

-Ralph Marstan

You can only be truly accomplished at something you love. Don't make money the goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you. All the other tangible rewards will come as a result.

-Maya Angelou 

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

-Michael Jordan

Success is not a destination. It is a journey.

-Zig Ziglar

Success is that old ABC - ability, breaks, and courage.

-Charles Luckman

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is true failure.

-George Edward Woodberry

The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed. 

-Lloyd Jones

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

-Sam Ewing

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

-Dale Carnegie

We strain hardest for things which are almost, but now quite within reach.

-Frederick Faber

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be overcome. 

-Dr. Johnson

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.

-Henry Ford

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

-Henry Ford

Put a grain of boldness into everything you do.

-Balasar Gracian

A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for.

-William Shedd

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

-Francis Bacon

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

The best helping hand that you will ever receive is the one at the end of your own arm.

-Fred Dehner

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going

-Beverly Sills

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to always try just one more time.

-Thomas Edison

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

-Booker T. Washington

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

-Albert Einstein

The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.

-Channing Pollock

We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history.

-Sonia Johnson

Every worthwhile accomplishment has a price tag attached to it. The question is always whether you are willing to pay the price to attain it - in hard work, sacrifice, patience, faith, and endurance.

-John C. Maxwell

Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.

-Erma Bombeck

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.

-Anthony J. D'Angelo

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore is not an act, but a habit.

-Aristotle

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

-Woody Allen

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

-Arthur McAuliff

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other comes from a strong won't.

-Henry Ward Beecher

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.

-author unknown

When the world says, "Give up," Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."

-author unknown

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing until it gets there. 

-Josh Billings

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

-Japanese Proverb

Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone every stumbling on something sitting down.

-Charles F. Kettering

Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.

-Christopher Morley

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

-Douglas MacArthur

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

-M. Kathleen Casey

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

-Garrison Keillor

 I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.

-Jewish Proverb

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere. 

-Frank A. Clark

Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.

-Arthur Golden

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

-Theodore Rubin

A bad grade is only one letter in the Essay of life.

-Lee Drake

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

-African Proverb

When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

-John F. Kennedy

A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

-Duke Ellington

 What a pity human beings can't exchange problems. Everyone knows exactly how to solve the other fellow's.

 -Olin Miller

 When life gives you lemons, please, just don't squirt them in other people's eyes.

-J. Andrew Helt

The gem cannot be polished without friction nor man without trials.

-Confucius

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

-Dr Seuss

Rock bottom is good solid ground, and a dead end street is just a place to turn around.

-Buddy Buie

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

-Elbert Hubbard

Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.

-Grandma Moses

It always seems impossible until it is done.

-Nelson Mandela 

A different wold cannot be built by indifferent people.

-Peter Marshall

Those who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person doing it.

-Chinese Proverb

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal, you do not change your decision to get there.

-Zig Ziglar

Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it.

-author unknown

To believe in yourself and to follow your dreams, to have goals in life and a drive to succeed, and to surround yourself with the things and the people that make you happy. This is success!

-Sasha Azevedo

Success: To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Try this: Have students read the last two quotes and then write their own definition of success.


Do you have a quote to add? Please comment!