Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.
— Othello
Quotes About Motivation
Jane Austen gave motivation its most practical definition: the distance is nothing when one has a motive. Frank Lloyd Wright defined a professional as one who does his best work when he feels the least like working. Thomas Jefferson told anyone who wants to know who they are not to ask but to act, since action will delineate and define them.
Goethe described the gap between ambition and effort: the heights charm us, but the steps do not. Alexander Graham Bell advised concentrating every thought on the work in hand, because the sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus. Plato called necessity the mother of our invention. Nietzsche claimed to have built a world from the wreckage of stars. Donald Trump said money was never a big motivation for him except as a way to keep score, and Eminem hoped people would take from his music that anything is possible as long as they keep working at it.
Goethe described the gap between ambition and effort: the heights charm us, but the steps do not. Alexander Graham Bell advised concentrating every thought on the work in hand, because the sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus. Plato called necessity the mother of our invention. Nietzsche claimed to have built a world from the wreckage of stars. Donald Trump said money was never a big motivation for him except as a way to keep score, and Eminem hoped people would take from his music that anything is possible as long as they keep working at it.
The wreckage of stars - I built a world from this wreckage.
— Dithyrambs of Dionysus
You touch some of the reasons for my going, not for my staying away.
— A Tale of Two Cities
I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing when one has a motive.
— Pride and Prejudice
I think the motive force of all our action is, after all, personal happiness.
— Anna Karenina
Men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold.
— Politics
If you give up every time you don't achieve the immediate gain you want, you're just guaranteeing that the worst is going to happen... You can't expect an easy victory after one protest march.
— Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World
Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them.
— The Wealth of Nations
Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.
— The Old Man and the Sea
It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.
There are two levers for moving man -- interest and fear.
Life is not fair, get used to it
You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only their conduct we shall soon reach a very false conclusion.
Your greatness is measured by your horizons.
I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.
Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus
As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.
— Orlando
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
— The Republic
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
— I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
— The Essential Rumi
I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.
— Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
— Confucius: The Analects