This is a compilation of thoughts and quotes that I have found or written recently, as well as many that I've collected throughout the years. Most thoughts are posted randomly, as I feel inspired. A listing of quotes can be found alphabetically (check the 2008 and 2009 archives listing), or by source.

Feel free to suggest additions!


“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” – Proverbs 23:7

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Accomplishment / Achievement Quotes

1. Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can. - Thomas Carlyle

2. The world belongs to the energetic. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

4. Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan

5. There is no limit to how much good you can do as long as someone else gets the credit. - Benjamin Franklin

6. We cannot go back and make a new start, but we can start now to make a new ending. - Unknown

7. Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all he can do. - Henry Drummond

8. Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement. - Henry Ford

9. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. - Ecclesiastes 9:10

10. Get action. Do things; be sane, don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action. - Theodore Roosevelt

11. One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar. - Helen Keller

12. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done the deed once who does not shrink from attempting it again. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

13. Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far. - Theodore Roosevelt

14. You cannot climb a ladder by pushing others down. - Unknown

15. Every man is the architect of his own future. - Appius Claudius

16. I will go anywhere, provided it be forward. - David Livingstone

17. One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum. - Sir Walter Scott

18. No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. - William Blake

19. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute:
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it;
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Only engage and the mind grows heated;
Begin and then the work will be completed.
- Goethe

20. Do your job brilliantly and the cream will rise to the top. - Irene Rosenfeld

21. When you see a man on the top of a mountain, you know he didn’t fall there.
- Unknown

22. When you quit rowing, you start downstream. - Unknown

23. The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other one somewhat higher. - Unknown

24. The difference between history's boldest accomplishments and its most staggering failures is often, simply, the diligent will to persevere. - Abraham Lincoln

25. It is amazing how much good can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit! - Unknown

27. Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. - Eric Butterworth

28. The starting point for all achievement is desire. - Napoleon Hill

29. Possibilities are the only things that are truly limitless. - Unknown

30. See the invisible, feel the intangible, and achieve the impossible. - Unknown

31. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

32. If you don’t climb the mountain, you can’t enjoy the view. - Unknown

33. Make no little plans, for they have no magic to stir men’s blood... Make big plans, aim high in hope and work. – Daniel H. Burnham

34. Today’s preparation determines tomorrow’s achievement. - Unknown

35. Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible. - Doug Larson

36. Don’t wait for your ship to come in; swim out to it. – Unknown

37. Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is? - Frank Scully

38. Determine the thing that can and shall be done, and then we shall find a way.
- Abraham Lincoln

39. If you can't do great things, do small things in a great way. - Napolean Hill

40. Well done is better than well said. - Benjamin Franklin

41. Nothing will ever be attained if all possible objections must first be overcome. - Unknown

42. The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become. - Harold Taylor

43. Anything the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
- Napoleon Hill

44. Man is so made that when anything fires his soul impossibilities vanish.
- Jean De La Fontaine

45. He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit. - Sir Walter Scott

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

47. The world is blessed most by men who do things, and not by those who merely talk about them. - James Oliver

48. We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion. - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

49. Stand up for something. Give something back. Take on big challenges. A person derives an inner pride by doing something with their lives and contributing to something bigger than oneself. - George Bush, Sr.

50. Do or do not. There is no try. - Yoda in ‘Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back’

51. To accomplish great things one must not only act, but dream. - Unknown

52. No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it. - Unknown

53. Behold the turtle - he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. – Unknown

54. It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. - Walt Disney

55. Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down. - Unknown

56. Go now, strong men! Follow the road of great example. Why slack off and turn your backs. When you overcome the earth, the stars will be yours! - Boethius

57. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan

58. Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do - do it and let it speak for itself. - Martin Vanbee

59. No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. - William Blake

60. Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them. - Warren Bennis

61. The man who says “it can’t be done” is interrupted by the man who is doing it.
- Unknown

62. The smallest good deed is better than the largest good intention. - Unknown

63. Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. - Bruce Barton

64. The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your convictions. - William F. Scolavino

65. Everything cometh to he who waiteth, so long as he who waiteth worketh like hell while he waiteth. - Unknown

66. Every noble work is at first impossible. – Unknown

67. He who would begin has half done. Dare to be wise; begin. – Horace

68. Let us, then, be up and doing. With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing. Learn to labor and to wait.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

69. Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. – Andrew Jackson

70. The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. - Walt Disney

71. The will to conquer is the first condition of victory. - Marshal Ferdinand Foch

72. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily. - Colossians 3:23

73. Facing it - always facing it - that's the way to get through. Face it! - Joseph Conrad

74. There is a very real relationship, both quantitatively and qualitatively, between what you contribute and what you get out of this world. - Oscar Hammerstein II

75. The keen spirit seizes the prompt occasion. - Hannah Moore

76. We sometimes feel that what we do is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. - Mother Teresa

77. Reach high, for stars hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. - Pamela Vaull Starr

78. The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor. - Christian Bovee

79. I try to keep in mind not what I have accomplished but what I have to try to accomplish in the future. - Jackie Joyner Kersee

80. Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning

81. No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself. - James Russell Lowell

82. If you want to do something, do it! - Plautus

83. It is never too late to be what you might have been. - T.S. Eliot

84. If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it. - Jonathan Winters

85. Champions take responsibility. When the ball is coming over the net, you can be sure I want the ball. - Billie Jean King

86. Once the 'what' is decided, the 'how' always follows. We must not make the 'how' an excuse for not facing and accepting the 'what.' - Pearl S. Buck

87. Act in the living present! - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

88. I love the challenge of starting at zero every day and seeing how much I can accomplish. - Martha Stewart

89. Seize today, and put as little trust as you can in the morrow. - Horace

90. I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. - Helen Keller

91. It doesn’t matter how fast you climb a ladder, if your ladder is leaning on the wrong wall. – Mary Jo Waits

92. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt

93. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, they make them. - George Bernard Shaw

94. Never act until you have clearly answered the question: "What happens if I do nothing? - Robert Brault

95. Most people spend all their lives without anything important to do. When you have something important to do, you can't let anything stand in your way - you've got to see it through. - Bertan Palmer Haley (Alex Haley's mother)

96. A nod, a bow, and a tip of the lid to the person who coulda and shoulda and did. - Robert Brault

97. One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on. - D.H. Lawrence

98. I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious. - Vince Lombardi

99. We are what we repeatedly do. - Aristotle

100. Do what you can with what you have where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt

101. You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind. - Unknown

102. If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin. - Ivan Turgenev

103. Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together. - Vista M. Kelly

104. You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result. - Mahatma Gandhi

105. Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect. -Leonardo Da Vinci

106. The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. - Walt Disney

107. What a great discrepancy there is between men and the results they achieve! It is due to the difference in their power of calling together all the rays of their ability, and concentrating them upon one point. - Orison Swett Marden

108. The beginning is half of every action. - Greek proverb

109. What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

110. You can't steal second base and keep one foot on first. - Unknown

111. Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them. - Alfred North Whitehead

112. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. - Lord Chesterfield

113. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. - Goethe

114. If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life. - Chris Evert

115. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. - Unknown

116. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. - Marie Curie

117. I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life's greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve. This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent. As simplistic as this may sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their dreams from those who live in regret. - Unknown

118. A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements. - Marden

119. Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was. - Dag Hammarskjold

120. Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly. - Robert Schuller

121. We won't even attempt to achieve what we do not believe at a deep level we can have or deserve. - Ruth Ross

122. If you nurture your mind, body, and spirit, your time will expand. You will gain a new perspective that will allow you to accomplish much more. - Brian Koslow

123. If you rest, you rust. - Helen Hayes

124. Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It's a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment. - Eric Butterworth

125. Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. - Vincent van Gogh

124. Action conquers fear. - Peter N. Zarlenga

125. Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets. - Nido Qubein

126. Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. - Napoleon Hill

127. Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment. - Heywood Broun

128. Nothing of worth or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with a faint heart, and with a lame endeavor. - Isaac Barrow

129. High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation. - Jack Kinder

130. Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve! - Andrew Carnegie

131. The question for each man is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things he has. - Frank Hamilton

132. Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon...must inevitably come to pass. - Paul Meyer

133. If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved. - Maurice Chevalier

134. All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible. - Orison Swett Marden

135. You don't need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it day. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating. - Barbara Sher

136. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. - Mark Twain

137. The world seems to belong to those who reach out and grab it with both hands. It belongs to those who do something rather than just wish and hope and plan and pray, and intend to do something someday, when everything is just right. - Brian Tracy

138. An average person who develops the habit of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed quickly will run circles around a genius who talks a lot and makes wonderful plans but gets very little done. - Brian Tracy

139. Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else. - Brian Tracy

140. The thing is, we have to let go of all blame, all attacking, all judging, to free our inner selves to attract what we say we want. Until we do, we are hamsters in a cage chasing our own tails and wondering why we aren't getting the results we seek. - Joe Vitale

141. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. - Dale Carnegie

142. Action eradicates fear. No matter what you fear, positive, self-affirming action can diminish or completely cancel that which you are fearful of. - Mark Victor Hansen

143. To achieve something you have never achieved before you must become someone you have never been. - Les Brown

144. Whatever you accomplish in life is a manifestation not as much of what you do, as of what you believe you deserve. - Les Brown

145. Stop thinking... Start doing. Think less... Do more. Do the thing... And you will know the way. - Hal Elrod

146. I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision. - W. Clement Stone

147. Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking. - Stephen Covey

148. All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners. Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they're not learning, they're not growing and not moving toward excellence. - Denis Waitley

149. It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and made things happen. - Elinor Smith

150. I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

151. None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

152. The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just like as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat. - Napoleon Hill

153. Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don’t think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire. - Samuel Johnson

154. The difference between try and triumph is a little umph. - Unknown

155. I would not sit waiting for some value tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime…. I would make something happen. - Louis L’Amour

156. When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve. - Napoleon Hill

157. No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. - Agnes De Mille

158. Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing. - William Feather

159. The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. - Nolan Bushnell

160. Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle, and a victory. - Mahatma Gandhi

161. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. - Eleanor Roosevelt

162. To get what you want, STOP doing what isn’t working. - Dennis Weaver

163. The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have. - Hazlitt

164. Desire is the starting point of all achievement. Not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything. - Napoleon Hill

165. Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly. - Robert H. Schuller

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