Quotes about effort
page 5

“Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Dreams

“A fanatic is a man who, when he's lost sight of his purpose, redoubles his effort.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Harvest of Stars

“We do not have an ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

Source: The Man in the High Castle (1962)

World

“No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Source: Daniel Deronda

Love, Evil

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Variant: Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.
Source: Invisible Monsters

“One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness — simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

On est heureux par soi-même quand on sait s'y prendre, avoir des goûts simples, un certain courage, une certaine abnégation, l'amour du travail et avant tout une bonne conscience.
Letter to Charles Poney, (16 November 1866), published in Georges Lubin (ed.) Correspondance (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1964-95) vol. 20, p. 188; André Maurois (trans. Gerard Hopkins) Lélia: The Life of George Sand (New York: Harper, 1954) p. 418
Variant: One is happy once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience.
Source: Correspondance, 1812-1876, Volume 5

Love, Courage, Happiness

“The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty

Way, Freedom

“Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

Way, Thinking, Change

“You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

“Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Strong

“Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator's love for it.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Love, Sense, Personality

“The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don't believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Life

“Walls don't fall without effort.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Bruiser

“Professors of literature collect books the way a ship collects barnacles, without seeming effort.”

Carolyn G. Heilbrun (1926–2003) Academic, novelist

Source: Death in a Tenured Position

Books, Way, Literature

“I can see now that it’s the little things, the small efforts, that keep a relationship going. And I know now too that in some small measure I have the power to hurt him and also the power to make it better.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Hurt

“People are never satisfied. If they have a little, they want more. If they have a lot, they want still more. Once they have more, they wish they could be happy with little, but are incapable of making the slightest effort in that direction.”

Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone

Source: The Winner Stands Alone

People, Happiness

“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Women, Time, Baby

“The victory one would gain after a whole life of work and effort is better than one that is gained sooner.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Life, Victory

“Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.”

Masamune Shirow Ghost in the Shell

Source: Ghost in the Shell

“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4 "Problems of Humanistic Ethics"

Life, Birth, Personality

“You spend so much time, so much effort, trying to hold yourself together.

And then everything falls apart anyway.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Time

“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you’re capable of far more than you imagined. You live in this vast body called the Universe, which contains all the solutions and all the problems. Visit your soul; don’t visit your past. The Universe goes through many mutations and carries the past with it. We call each of those mutations a ‘life,’ but just as the cells in your body change and yet you remain the same, so time does not pass, it merely changes.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Life, Soul, Imagination, Problem

“The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 23 (p. 300)
Context: “The human eye is a wonderful device,” I quoted from Poems and Other Prevarications absently. “With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”

“For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Error

“If I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply asked,'then what are we fighting for?”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

War, Art, Fight

“Isabelle," she said, lightening her tone with an obvious effort, "your loyalty to your friend is understandable --"
"He's not my friend." Isabelle looked over at Jace, who was staring at her in a sort of daze. "He's my brother.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Understanding, Loyalty

“I regret everything because it has just finished, and already when I was twelve, I lamented the time that had gone by. Even in the best of spirits, it's always been as though I wrestle with the present in a vain effort to stop its becoming the past.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Time, Past

“The farmer has patience and trusts the process. He just has the faith and deep understanding that through his daily efforts, the harvest will come. And then one day, almost out of nowhere, it does.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life

Faith, Understanding, Patience

“You cannot fake effort; talent is great, but perseverance is necessary.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Perseverance

“The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic, and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression.”

Gene Sharp book From Dictatorship to Democracy

Source: From Dictatorship to Democracy

Way

“I emphasize in it [my Orientalism] accortdingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the Other.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

“No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Education, Soul, Wealth

“Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Life, Pain, Birth

“You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."

"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

Hate, People, Help

“Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results.”

James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer

“Not everyone is willing to embrace liberty; liberty requires not just effort, but risk. Some people choose to delude themselves and see their chains as protective armor.”

Terry Goodkind Chainfire

Source: Chainfire

People

“The Mathemagician nodded knowingly and stroked his chin several times. “You’ll find,” he remarked gently, “that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that’s hardly worth the effort.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Time

“When you have only two minutes to say good-bye to the person you love most in the world, and you don’t know when you’ll see each other again, you can become logjammed with the effort to say and do and settle everything at once.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Love, World, Personality

“Superhuman effort isn't worth a damn unless it achieves results.”

Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer

“Mahon's wife stared down at us. Her hands went to her hips. "Which one of you idiots wants to explain to me what the hell is going on?"
With great effort I raised my arm and pointed in Mahon's general direction. "Him.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds - Awake

Hell

“She had never asked herself whether it cost him any effort. Any effort to stand between Will and the world, protecting each one of them from the other.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

World

“Earning trust is not easy, nor is it cheap, nor does it happen quickly. Earning trust is hard and demanding work. Trust comes only with genuine effort, never with a lick and a promise.”

Max DePree (1924–2017) American businessman and writer

Source: Leading Without Power: Finding Hope in Serving Community

“Destiny, I feel, is also a relationship - a play between divine grace and willful self-effort.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Feeling

“Evil happens without effort, naturally, inevitably; good is always the product of skill.”

Charles Baudelaire Le Peintre de la vie moderne

Le mal se fait sans effort, naturellement, par fatalité; le bien est toujours le produit d'un art. <br class="br">XI: "Éloge du maquillage" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%89loge_du_maquillage <br class="br">Le peintre de la vie moderne (1863)

Nature, Evil

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees

Art

“It was funny to hear her voice aloud. Her thoughts and perceptions usually existed so deep inside her, they rarely made it to the surface without a deliberate effort.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

“Success always demands a greater effort.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Their Finest Hour

Success

“I had carried on when all I wanted was to be dead. I had stayed alive for other people. I never stayed alive for myself. I cannot begin to describe the intensity of that effort.”

Sally Brampton (1955–2016) British writer

Source: Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

People, Dead

“The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 9
Context: There is survival and survival, the historian learns to his grief. The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.
Context: My dear and unfortunate successor:
I shall conclude my account as rapidly as possible, since you must draw from it vital information if we are both to — ah, to survive, at least, and to survive in a state of goodness and mercy. There is survival and survival, the historian learns to his grief. The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime.

“Chairmen Meow deserves me every effort.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“If he's choosing not to make a simple effort that would put you at ease and bring harmony to a recurring fight, then he doesn't respect your feelings and needs.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Feeling, Fight

“The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Life

“It has taken me years of struggle, hard work, and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

Beauty, Art, Learning

“She heard Adrian say to Christian, ʺYou know, your shirtʹs kind of grungy-looking. Seems like you could put in a little more effort since youʹre dating a princess.ʺ”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“This world has been connected… tied to the darkness… soon to be completely eclipsed… there is very much to learn… you understand so little… a meaningless effort… one who knows nothing cannot understand nothing.”

Shiro Amano (1976) Japanese manga artist

Source: Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1

World, Understanding, Learning

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Learning

“I'm too careless. I don't put out enough effort. I'm tired.”

Charles Bukowski book South of No North

Source: South of No North

“Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Love, Art, Knowledge

“The real Tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort-he never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.”

Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) English novelist

Life

“A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Perfection

“A slow smile had curved St. Vincent's lips. 'Wives are a different case altogether. They require a great deal of effort but the rewards are substantial. I highly recommend wives. Especially one's own.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Mine Till Midnight

Smile

“A non-doer is very often a critic-that is, someone who sits back and watches doers, and then waxes philosophically about how the doers are doing. It's easy to be a critic, but being a doer requires effort, risk, and change.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Change

“Helplessness is such a rotten feeling. There's nothing you can do about it. Being helpless is like being paralyzed. It's sickness. The cure calls for a monumental effort to stand up and start walking somewhere, anywhere. But that takes some doing.”

Chuck Barris (1929–2017) American game show creator, producer, and host

Source: You and Me, Babe

Feeling

“Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

Life, Music

“The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Painting

“Do not forget, some give little, and it is much for them, others give all, and it costs them no effort; who then has given most?”

Knut Hamsun (1859–1952) Norwegian novelist and Nobel Prize recipient

Source: Pan: From Lieutenant Thomas Glahn's Papers

Forgetting

“Genuinely social people never ceased to amaze him. Their brains seemed to generate an inexhaustible fund of things to say, naturally, with no effort, out of nothing at all.”

Lev Grossman The Magician King

Source: The Magician King

People, Nature

“The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above-average effort.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

1990s, My American Journey (1996)

People

“Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

As quoted in A Woman's Journal : A Blank Book with Quotes by Women (2002) by Running Press Staff, p. 1932

“One minute was enough, Tyler said, "A person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Personality, Perfection

“But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way — it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

Source: The Yellow Wall-Paper

Way, Feeling, Thinking

“Yoga is the effort to experience one's divinity personally and then to hold on to that experience forever.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Personality

“You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you've got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up, you do more thinking at that point.”

Haruki Murakami book The Elephant Vanishes

Source: The Elephant Vanishes

Thinking

“Never," said Gregor. "I'll never get rid of you, no matter how hard I try." It was no longer an effort to say the words. "I love you."
"I love you, too," said Luxa.
After that there was nothing left to say.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor and the Code of Claw

Source: Gregor and the Code of Claw

Love

“Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Nature

“I am too tired, I must try to rest and sleep, otherwise I am lost in every respect. What an effort to keep alive! Erecting a monument does not require an expenditure of so much strength.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Sleep

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love (2006)
Context: Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.

Personality, Happiness

“Greg made us see, after an enormous amount of effort, that if a (sane) guy really likes you, there ain’t nothing that’s going to get in his way. And if he’s not sane, why would you want him?”

Liz Tuccillo book He's Just Not That into You

Source: He's Just Not That Into You

Way, Guy

“Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering
Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,
Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give.”

Ted Hughes Birthday Letters

Source: Birthday Letters

Life, Water, Dance

“All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

World

“Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. They prove to be the ones most faithful to them…it is a fact commonly known in the trade.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Faith, Animals

“My negotiation skills are are on par with George Bush's reading ability. And just like Dubya, every time I've tried to put forth an effort, I am reminded that my only true strength lies in drinking.”

Chelsea Handler book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

Source: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

Drink, Time, Reading

“There are moments in life when it is all turned inside out--what is real becomes unreal, what is unreal becomes tangible, and all your levelheaded efforts to keep a tight ontological control are rendered silly and indulgent.”

Aleksandar Hemon The Lazarus Project

Source: The Lazarus Project

Life

“I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort and disappointment and perseverance.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Beauty, Disappointment, Perseverance

“The effort of explaining, even of expressing himself, had become, with the years, more and more terrifying to him. Whether from laziness or from inability to find the right words, he had developed almost a passion for silence.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

Source: Thérèse

Silence, Passion

“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

First mentioned as "Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking and using our potential." according to Quote Investigator in the 1981 book The Reflecting Pond: Meditations for Self-Discovery by Liane Cordes, Quote Page 89, Hazelden Publishing, Center City, Minnesota. For further research on this quote see: Quote Investigator (August 31, 2013): Continuous Effort — Not Strength or Intelligence — Is the Key to Unlocking and Using Our Potential Winston Churchill? Liane Cordes? Liane Cardes? Apocryphal? Archived http://archive.is/E0M12 on June 2, 2020. <br class="br">Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/21/effort/ from the original

Intelligence