On Effort

‘But having had your bright, fresh, original idea, the really hard part is turning it into a successful product. That’s what takes all the sweat.’
— Trevor Baylis

‘It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.’
— Arnold Bennett

‘Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.’
— Albert Camus

‘Genius is the capacity for taking infinite pains.’
— Thomas Carlyle

‘The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.’
— Andrew Carnegie

‘Nothing is so difficult but that it may be found out by seeking.’
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

‘I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.’
— Coleman Cox

‘Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.’
— Thomas Alva Edison

‘Look deep, deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.’
— Albert Einstein

‘The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working. One is tempted to stop and listen to it. The only thing is to turn away and go on working. Work. There is nothing else.’
— Albert Einstein

‘I know quite certainly that I myself have no special gift. Curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance combined with self-critique have brought me my ideas.’
— Albert Einstein

‘Diligence is the mother of good luck.’
— Benjamin Franklin

‘Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.’
— James A. Garfield

‘Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt.’
— José Ortega Y Gasset

‘No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.’
— André Gide

‘A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.’
— Charles de Gaulle

‘Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject at hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit if genius. It is the fruit of labour and thought.’
— Alexander Hamilton

‘You must lose a fly to catch a trout.’
— George Herbert

‘Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts.’
— Elbert Hubbard

‘Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.’
— Jesse Jackson

‘Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.’
— William James

‘Genius begins great works; labour alone finishes them.’
— Joseph Joubert

‘Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.’
— Ray Kroc

‘The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.’
— Edward Kennedy

‘I don’t believe in inspiration. I believe in work, because while one works one’s creativity is opened.’
— Giacomo Manzu

‘I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.’
— Henri Matisse

‘If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.’
— Michaelangelo

‘Creativity is more than mere imagination. It is imagination inseparably coupled with both intent and effort.’
— Alex Osborn

‘The harder I practice, the luckier I get.’
— Gary Player

‘The Tao is near and people seek it far away.’
— Mencius

‘Ingenuity, plus courage, plus work, equals miracles.’
— Bob Richards

‘The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.’
— Vidal Sassoon

‘When I was young I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work.’
— George Bernard Shaw

‘Creativity is no less challenging or exciting when the mystery is stripped from the creative process. The most beautiful flowers grow under careful cultivation from common soil.’
— Herbert Simon

‘It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.’
— W. Somerset Maugham

‘There is no success without hardship.’
— Sophocles

‘To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.’
— Robert Louis Stevenson

‘Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.’
— Pyotr Tchaikovsky

‘To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.’
— Mother Teresa