“Life is 10 percent what you make it
and 90 percent how you take it.”
“Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.”
Source: The Secret
“One percent intention, ninety nine percent desire.”
Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)
“Ninety percent of life was being there, and the rest was being there on time.”
Source: Synners (1991), Chapter 32 (p. 389)
“If you treat people right they will treat you right — ninety percent of the time.”
As quoted in The Roosevelt I Knew (1946) by Frances Perkins, p. 5
Posthumous publications
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Spoken statement (c. 1903); published in Harper's Monthly (September 1932).
Variants:
None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Statement in a press conference (1929), as quoted in Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987) by James D. Newton, p. 24.
Variant forms without early citation: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework."
"Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."
1900s
Variant: Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety nine perspiration.
“Angel, getting you off is ninety-nine percent of the fun for me.”
Source: Entwined with You
