"Invention requires an excited mind; execution, a calm one." Johann Peter Eckermann, poet (1792-1854)

"The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play." Arnold Toynbee

"The satisfaction to be derived from success in a great constructive enterprise is one of the most massive that life has to offer." Bertrand Russell

"But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people." Randy Pausch The Last Lecture

"If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that is a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life." Chris Evert (1954 - )

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records." William A. Ward

"An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox." Lao Tzu

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

"Action is the antidote to despair." Joan Baez

"We are all trying to get better--if you're standing still, you're getting worse." Tiger Woods

"Strong reasons make strong actions." Shakespeare

"You are not here merely to make a living. you are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand." Woodrow Wilson

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action." Frank Tibolt

“Perfection is the enemy of done.” Sark

“To fly, we have to have resistance." Maya Lin

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." Helen Keller

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” Michael Jordan

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Jacob Riis

“Nobody can prevent you from choosing to be exceptional.” Mark Sanborn

“You can never conquer the mountain. You can only conquer yourself.” James Whittaker

“Some of us have great runways already built for us. If you have one, take off! But if you don't have one, realize it's your responsibility to grab a shovel and build one for yourself and for those who will follow after you.” Amelia Earhart

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Pericles

“High expectations are the key to everything.” Sam Walton

“The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.” Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1995)

“We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.” Martha Grimes

“Human beings have the remarkable ability to turn nothing into something. They can turn weeds into gardens and pennies into fortunes.” Jim Rohn

“Why should it be that whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.” Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) American mythological scholar

“No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist.” J. Paul Getty

“All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.” Sir Walter Scott

“Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary line and adding to one’s liberty.” Henry Frederic Amiel

“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.” John Wooden

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. You may enjoy doing it so much that you want to do it again.” Ross Perot

“Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish.” Cecile M. Springer

“Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves--to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.” Stewart B. Johnson

“To get where you want to go you can't only do what you like.” Peter Abrahams

“Ninety percent of achievement is deciding where you want to be and flying over the obstacles.” Linda Lundstrom

“Before deciding you want to get up early it would be wise to determine if you are the bird or the worm.” Anonymous

“A lazy person, whatever the talents with which he sets out, will have condemned himself to second-hand thoughts and to second-rate friends.” Cyril Connolly

“Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.” Earl Gray Stevens

“Stand often in the company of dreamers: they tickle your common sense and believe you can achieve things which are impossible.” Mary Anne M.B.L. Radmacher

“Efficiency is intelligent laziness.” David Dunham

"He did each single thing as if he did nothing else." Charles Dickens

“The man who rolls up his sleeves seldom loses his shirt.” Thomas Cowan

“Logic will not change an emotion, but action will.” Anonymous

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

“You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.” Zig Ziglar

“He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.” William Blake

“I studied the lives of great men and famous women; and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work.” Harry S. Truman

“Two-thirds of promotion is motion.” unknown

“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.” Thoreau

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.” Margaret Drabble

“The brain can be developed just the same as the muscles can be developed, if one will only take the pains to train the mind to think. Why do so many men never amount to anything? Because they don't think.” Thomas Edison

“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Every action we take, everything we do, is either a victory or defeat in the struggle to become what we want to be.” Anny Bryhhe

“Have the courage to do things you are not an expert at, try things that you are totally unsure about, have the courage to stick with it once you start and learn from every step that you take until your particular goal is reached. Even if your goal is never reached, it is a learning process that will enhance your life.” Walter Payton (1954-1999)

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.” Georgia O’Keeffe

“As is our confidence, so is our capacity.” William Hazlitt

“He who would leap high must take a long run.” Danish Proverb

“To be ambitious for wealth, and yet always expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure. No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible.” Charles Baudouin

“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” Thomas Edison

“In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.” Henry David Thoreau

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.” Abraham Lincoln

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.” unknown

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” Jack Kinder

“Talent is only the starting point.” Irving Berlin

“The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.” Harold Taylor