Quotes about accomplishment
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Pranab Mukherjee photo

“Our nation is grateful for their hard work and proud of their accomplishments”

Pranab Mukherjee (1935) 13th President of India

Quoted on Yahoo News! India, "Pranab Mukherjee congratulates ISRO for successful launch of PSLV-C24" https://in.news.yahoo.com/pranab-mukherjee-congratulates-isro-successful-launch-pslv-c24-154506512.html, April 4, 2014.
Context: My heartiest congratulations to you and your entire team at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the successful launch of PSLV-C24, carrying the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS)-1B. The launch of PSLV-C24, with IRNSS-1B marks an important landmark in our space programme and demonstrates, yet again, India's capabilities in space launch technology. The nation will immensely benefit from the applications of IRNSS which include terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation, disaster management, vehicle tracking and fleet management etc. Kindly convey my greetings to the members of your team of scientists, engineers, technologists and all others associated with this great mission. Our nation is grateful for their hard work and proud of their accomplishments.

Harry V. Jaffa photo

“Slavery was lawful in every one of the original thirteen states. There was accordingly nothing remarkable in the fact that slavery was not abolished immediately on independence. What is remarkable is that a slave-owning nation would declare that all men are created equal, and thereby make the abolition of slavery a moral and political necessity. To accomplish that task would not be easy”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, God Bless America (2008), Slavery and the Human Story
Context: But one may ask, how is it that slavery, or any other form of invidious discrimination, has played so great a role in American history? How could a nation, dedicated at its birth to the proposition that all men are created equal, have tolerated slavery and its effects so long? If we look to the long history of mankind, however, we will ask a different question. Slavery was lawful in every one of the original thirteen states. There was accordingly nothing remarkable in the fact that slavery was not abolished immediately on independence. What is remarkable is that a slave-owning nation would declare that all men are created equal, and thereby make the abolition of slavery a moral and political necessity. To accomplish that task would not be easy. We need to see the dimensions of that task to appreciate its difficulty.

John Adams photo

“The complete accomplishment of it, in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together — a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever before effected.
In this research, the gloriole of individual gentlemen, and of separate States, is of little consequence. The means and the measures are the proper objects of investigation. These may be of use to posterity, not only in this nation, but in South America and all other countries.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1810s, What do we mean by the American Revolution? (1818)
Context: The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government so different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners, and habits had so little resemblance, and their intercourse had been so rare, and their knowledge of each other so imperfect, that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the same system of action, was certainly a very difficult enterprise. The complete accomplishment of it, in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together — a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever before effected.
In this research, the gloriole of individual gentlemen, and of separate States, is of little consequence. The means and the measures are the proper objects of investigation. These may be of use to posterity, not only in this nation, but in South America and all other countries. They may teach mankind that revolutions are no trifles; that they ought never to be undertaken rashly; nor without deliberate consideration and sober reflection; nor without a solid, immutable, eternal foundation of justice and humanity; nor without a people possessed of intelligence, fortitude, and integrity sufficient to carry them with steadiness, patience, and perseverance, through all the vicissitudes of fortune, the fiery trials and melancholy disasters they may have to encounter.

James A. Garfield photo

“Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Statement of 1876, in The Diary of James A. Garfield: 1875-1877 (1983), edited by Harry James Brown and Frederick D. Williams. p. 396
1870s
Context: Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis. Conservatives have their place in the piping times of peace; but in emergencies only rugged issue men amount to much.

Reza Pahlavi photo

“Once Iran is liberated, and my fellow compatriots are free to elect their leaders and decide on their democratic political system of choice, my foreseeable mission will be accomplished. From that day on, my role will be determined by my compatriots. I will thus serve them in whatever capacity they see fit.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Mark Pitzke, 'Iran Is My True and Only Home' http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/iran-s-crown-prince-reza-pahlavi-iran-is-my-true-and-only-home-a-641984-2.html, August 12, 2009.
Interviews, 2009

Reza Pahlavi photo
Reza Pahlavi photo
George Carlin photo
Vince Lombardi photo
Alfredo Rocco photo

“Thus the facts demonstrate that, while the epoch of nationalities was coming to a close with the national reconstitution of the last remaining peoples yet to accomplish it, the epoch of empires of super-States was opening, bringing colossi which dwarfed the great empires of history.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

“Il dovere dei giovani” (“Duty of Young People”), in Alfredo Rocco’s Scritti e discorsi politici, Milan: Giuffrè. Vol. 2, (1938) p. 526

Joseph Addison photo
Ernest King photo

“While we contemplate with pride the accomplishments of the past twelve months- accomplishments without precedent in naval history- we must never forget that there is a long, tough and laborious road ahead.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Second Report, p. 163
U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945: Official Reports to the Secretary of the Navy (1946)

Baruch Spinoza photo
William Faulkner photo
Viet Thanh Nguyen photo
Milton Friedman photo
Nnedi Okorafor photo

“I believe aliens have definitely been here. I don’t think the theory that they have affected, interacted with, exchanged with the people of Earth (human and otherwise) in the past takes away from the accomplishments or innovations of anyone. I think the general belief that certain peoples are less than other peoples is what does that…”

Nnedi Okorafor (1974) Nigerian-American writer of fantasy and science fiction

On her belief about extraterrestrial life in “Interview: Nnedi Okorafor” http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-nnedi-okorafor/ in Lightspeed Science Fiction & Fantasy (Mar 2017)
Personal life

Vladimir Lenin photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Carl Sagan photo
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi photo

“You have no alternative, and if you wish to live in honor, then this can be accomplished only by returning to your religion to religion and to jihad against your enemies.”

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019) leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 22 August 2018 (date of quote)
2014, 2018, Statement released in Arabic, 22 August 2018
Source: In a public statement by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the first in a year, he calls on his supporters to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide, mainly in Western countries. He mentions shooting, stabbing and ramming attacks as well as detonation of IEDs. https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/microsoft-wordin-public-statement-isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-first-year-calls-supporters-carry-terrorist-attacks-worldwide-mainly-western-countries-ment/, The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 27 August 2018

Frantz Fanon photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Sovereignty and kingship are never decided by academic debate. They are seized by force. The Ottoman dynasty appropriated by force the government of the Turks, and reigned over them for six centuries. Now the Turkish nation has effectively gained possession of its sovereignty… This is an accomplished fact… If those assembled here … see the matter in its natural light, we shall all agree. Otherwise, facts will still prevail, but some heads may roll.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

Abolition of the Ottoman sultanate, 1922 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_the_Ottoman_sultanate; also quoted in Nutuk http://tr.wikisource.org/wiki/Nutuk/14._b%C3%B6l%C3%BCm/M%C3%BC%C5%9Fterek_Enc%C3%BCmen%27e_anlatt%C4%B1%C4%9F%C4%B1m_hakikat (1927) by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Jordan Peterson photo
Charles Webster Leadbeater photo
Alfred Percy Sinnett photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“Destiny can contain a few extra threads in her design and still accomplish her original aims.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 3, Chapter 4 “Two Black Swords” (p. 114)
The Elric Cycle, Elric of Melniboné (1972)

Smedley D. Butler photo
Seneca the Younger photo
Seneca the Younger photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things. First, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mister Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined. Though Mister Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The man who could say, 'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether', gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the south was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go.
About Abraham Lincoln https://web.archive.org/web/20150302203311/http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=4071#_ftnref57.
1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Teng Chia-chi photo

“We hope to accomplish sustainable progress through positive competition (between Taiwan and Mainland China) based on mutual understanding, respect and cooperation, despite the differences caused by long-term separation.”

Teng Chia-chi (1956) Taiwanese politician

Teng Chia-chi (2018) cited in " Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum opens in Taipei http://focustaiwan.tw/news/acs/201812200006.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 20 December 2018

John Calvin photo
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo
Giacomo Leopardi photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Morarji Desai photo

“He was a staunch Gandhian, driven by the burning conviction that he had a selfless mission to accomplish.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

Obituary: Morarji Desai

Epifanio de los Santos photo

“If you want to do something great in the world, do not get married, remain single… One may get married after he had accomplished something great in this world.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

Yet this great man who advised against marriage, was the happiest of men at the fireside of his family.
Views on marriage in The Manila Tribune. April 19, 1928.
BALIW

“My destiny is accomplished and I die content.”

How often she made such quotations as these, said or felt or was them! For just as many Americans want art to be Life, so this American novelist wanted life to be Art, not seeing that many of the values—though not, perhaps, the final ones—of life and art are irreconcilable; so that her life looked coldly into the mirror that it held up to itself, and saw that it was full of quotations, of data and analysis and epigrams, of naked and shameful truths, of facts: it saw that it was a novel by Gertrude Johnson.
Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 5: “Gertrude and Sidney”, p. 214

Jeff Buckley photo
Daniel Defoe photo

“A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.
The Education of Women (1719)

Prem Rawat photo
Prem Rawat photo

“Resolved that I, Jennifer H. Granholm, offer this certificate of tribute to Prem Rawat in honor of his exemplary career, life accomplishments, and many contributions to our citizens.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Jennifer H. Granholm, Governor of Michigan, United States of America, in a proclamation issued on Januar 2005
About, 2000s

Prem Rawat photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.”

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

Quote of Vincent's letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 3 April 1878; a cited in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his Brother, 1872-1886 (1927) Constable & Co
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 483
1870s
Variant: Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

John Stuart Mill photo
Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Paul Romer photo

“Many people think that dealing with protecting the environment will be so costly and so hard that they just want to ignore the problem. I hope the prize today could help everyone see that humans are capable of amazing accomplishments when we set about trying to do something.”

Paul Romer (1955) American economist

At a news conference following the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics announcement, as quoted in "2 Americans win econ Nobel for work on climate and growth" https://www.apnews.com/c3e7552c033748e683d502d890613b8b Associated Press. October 8, 2018.

John Scotus Eriugena photo

“Synthesizing as it does the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries, this book appears as the final achievement of ancient philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena (810–877) Irish theologian

George Bosworth Burch Early Medieval Philosophy (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1951) p. 5.

Of De Divisione Naturae.
Criticism

Joseph Goebbels photo

“Want work and bread for every productive national and blood comrade. Pay should be according to accomplishment. That means more pay for German workers!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Jonathan Mitchell photo
Victor Hugo photo
Victor Hugo photo
Alexander Calder photo
Michel Henry photo

“Affectivity has ever accomplished its work when the world rises.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Original: (fr) L'affectivité a déjà accompli son œuvre quand se lève le monde.
Source: Michel Henry, L'Essence de la manifestation, 1963, t. 2, § 54, p. 604
Books on Phenomenology of Life, The Essence of Manifestation (1963)

Umar II photo

“O people, you were not created in vain, nor will you be left to yourselves. Rather, you will return to a place in which Allah will descend in order to judge among you and distinguish between you. Destitute and lost are those who forsake the all-encompassing Mercy of Allah, and they will be excluded from Paradise, the borders of which are as wide as the heavens and the Earth. Don't you know that protection, tomorrow, will be limited to those who feared Allah [today], and to those who sold something ephemeral for something permanent, something small for something great, and fear for protection? Don't you realize that you are the descendants of those who have perished, that those who remain will take place after you, and that this will continue until you are all returned to Allah? Every day you dispatch to Allah, at all times of the day, someone who has ded, his term having come to an end. You bury him in a crack in the earth and then leave him without a pillow or a bed. He has parted from his loved ones, severed his connections with the living, and taken up residence in the earth, whereupon he comes face to face with the accounting. He is mortgaged to his deeds: He needs his accomplishments, but not the material things he left on earth. Therefore, fear Allah before death descends and its appointed times expire. I swear by Allah that I say those words to you knowing that I myself have committed more sins than any of you; I therefore ask Allah for forgiveness and I repent. Whenever we learn that one of you needs something, I try to satisfy his need to the extent that I am able. Whenever I can provide satisfaction to one of you out of you of my possessions, I seek to treat him as my equal and m relative, so that my life and his life are of equal value. I swear by Allah that had I wanted something else, namely, affluence, then it would have been easy for me to utter the word, aware as I am of the means for obtaining this. But Allah has issued in an eloquent Book (Quran) and a just example Sunnah by means of which He guides us to obedience and proscribes disobedience.”

Umar II (681–720) Umayyad caliph

History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 24, p. 98/99, also quoted in Umar Bin Abd Al-Aziz, p. 708-710
Last Sermon delivered to People

“New breakthrough technologies can make it easier, but we've already got, right now, everything we need to accomplish the task of transforming our energy economy away from fossil fuels. Except the willingness.”

Greg Craven American teacher and writer

Appendix (p. 218)
What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate (2009)

Anna J. Cooper photo

“We too often mistake individuals’ honor for race development and so are ready to substitute pretty accomplishments for sound sense and earnest purpose.”

Anna J. Cooper (1858–1964) African-American author, educator, speaker and scholar

Source: A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892), p. 29

Immanuel Kant photo

“What vexations there are in the external customs which are thought to belong to religion, but which in reality are related to ecclesiastical form! The merits of piety have been set up in such away that the ritual is of no use at all except for the simple submission of the believers to ceremonies and observances, expiations and mortifications (the more the better). But such compulsory services, which are mechanically easy (because no vicious inclination is thus sacrificed), must be found morally very difficult and burdensome to the rational man. When, therefore, the great moral teacher said, 'My commandments are not difficult,' he did not mean that they require only limited exercise of strength in order to be fulfilled. As a matter of fact, as commandments which require pure dispositions of the heart, they are the hardest that can be given. Yet, for a rational man, they are nevertheless infinitely easier to keep than the commandments involving activity which accomplishes nothing... [since] the mechanically easy feels like lifting hundredweights to the rational man when he sees that all the energy spent is wasted.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996). Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View https://books.google.com/books?id=TbkVBMKz418C. Translated by Victor Lyle Dowdell. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 9780809320608. Page 33.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Karl Kautsky photo
Elizabeth Willing Powel photo

“I have certainly experienced severe trials, and some hard dispensations of Providence … To travel with some dignity, innocence, and usefulness, down the Road which leads from the Morning of Youth to the Night of the Grave, is perhaps as much as we can flatter ourselves with accomplishing.”

Elizabeth Willing Powel (1743–1830) American socialite and women letter writer

As quoted in [Maxey, David W., 2006, A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel (1743–1830), https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/20020407, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, en, 63, 4, 10.2307/20020407, harv]

Colin Powell photo
Theodor Herzl photo
Kakuzo Okakura photo
Abimael Guzmán photo
Gary Goldman photo
Rosa Luxemburg photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Ron English photo

“There is much to accomplish before I become fertilizer for the foliage.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Death and the Eternal Forever (2014)

Donald J. Trump photo

“Today I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we've made. In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Address to UN General Assembly, quoted in * 2018-09-26
Trump's U.N. speech pitting globalism against patriotism proves the president has no idea what patriotism means
Daniel Shapiro
NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-u-n-speech-pitting-globalism-against-patriotism-proves-ncna913141
2018, September 2018

Elizabeth Blackwell photo
William G. Boykin photo

“Driving down child mortality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was in no way a single project, but it can be seen as a unified human accomplishment—maybe even our greatest human achievement, at least for pediatricians and parents.”

Perri Klass (1958) American pediatrician and writer

[Introduction, A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future, https://books.google.com/books?id=fNjVDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=unified&f=false, 13 October 2020, W. W. Norton, 978-0-393-61000-0] (ebook)

David Lloyd George photo

“As our fathers had freed our trade there was another work to accomplish. This was to free the land from the chains of feudalism, the schools from the dominion of the priest, and the people from the deadly grip of drink.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the Plait Hall, Luton (12 October 1904), quoted in The Times (13 October 1904), p. 9
Early political career

Seneca the Younger photo

“[Mucius] might have accomplished something more successful in that camp, but never anything more brave.”

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXIV: On despising death

Grace Kelly photo
Mao Zedong photo

“We must have faith in the masses and we must have faith in the Party. These are two cardinal principles. If we doubt these principles, we shall accomplish nothing.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

(zh-CN) 我们应当相信群众,我们应当相信党,这是两条根本的原理。如果怀疑这两条原理,那就什么事情也做不成了。
On the Question of Agricultural Co-Operation (July 31, 1955)
1950s

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Bill Maher photo

“It's not a sin, and it's certainly not inaccurate, to say we've come a long way, baby. Not mission accomplished, just a long way.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

New Rule: ‘Progressophobia’, (2021)