Don't Take It Too/Desperately Seriously - It Won't Work That Way Quotes

"Tom cursed himself for having been so heavy-handed and so humourless today. Nothing he took desperately seriously ever worked out. He'd found that out years ago."
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley

Success and Failure Quotes

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Thomas Edison

Remember, you only have to succeed the last time.
Brian Tracy

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Thomas Edison

It is not failure itself that holds you back; it is the fear of failure that paralyzes you.
Brian Tracy

Procrastination Quotes

To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.
Eva Young

You may delay, but time will not.
Benjamin Franklin

Discipline is... 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it that way every time.
Bobby Knight


What may be done at any time will be done at no time.
Scottish Proverb

Procrastination is the fear of success... Because success is heavy, it carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the "someday I'll" philosophy.
Denis Waitley


We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
Charles Kingsley

Procrastination is opportunity's assassin.
Victor Kiam


Taoism and Procrastination

How to stop Procrastination? Taoism gives 2 simple pieces of advice:

1. Cut any task into small tasks and continue cutting until you feel like starting at ‘task nr.1’, relaxed and without fear.

Taoism Quotes:

Plan difficult tasks through the simplest tasks
Achieve large tasks through the smallest tasks
The difficult tasks of the world
Must be handled through the simple tasks
The large tasks of the world
Must be handled through the small tasks
Therefore, sages never attempt great deeds all through life
Thus they can achieve greatness

Even a nine-storied terrace began with a single basket of dirt. Even a 1,000 mile journey began as a single step.

Deal with difficult tasks while they are easy. Act on large issues while they are small.

2. Try to enjoy what you do (‘intrinsic satisfaction’) because you do it (not for respect or money or whatever).

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.


And a quote from Aristotle:
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Ambition Quotes

More quotes on Achieving What You Want


The noblest spirit is most stronglyattracted by the love of glory.

Marcus T. Cicero



I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build.

John D. Rockefeller



Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Mark Twain



Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve. Most people's sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money.
Judith M. Bardwick



We are told never to cross a bridge until we come to it, but this world is owned by men who have 'crossed bridges' in their imagination far ahead of the crowd.

Anon



From compromise and things half done, Keep me with stern and stubborn pride,And when at last the fight is won,God, keep me still unsatisfied.

Louis Utermeyer



Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.

Kahlil Gibran

Quotes about Hard Work

When ambition ends,happiness begins.

Hungarian Proverb



First say to yourself what you would be;and then do what you have to do.

Epictetus



Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority, otherwise called ambition.

Cesare Pavese



The men who succeed are theefficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and willpower to develop themselves.

Herbert N. Casson



Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.



Watch out!



Most people would succeed insmall things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



Taoist View

More Tao Quotes

In order to master people
One must speak as their servant;
In order to lead people
One must follow them.

Tao Te Ching

Straighten yourself and you will not stand steady;
Display yourself and you will not be clearly seen;
Justify yourself and you will not be respected;
Promote yourself and you will not be believed;
Pride yourself and you will not endure.
Tao Te Ching

Here's to the future to the dreams of youth It's not much I'm asking if you want the truth I want it all I want it all and I want it NOW!

I want it all(Queen)

Aristotle Onassis Quotes

Don't sleep too much. If you sleep 3 hours less each night for a year, you will have an extra month and a half to succeed in.
Aristotle Onassis


The secret of business is to know something nobody else knows
Aristotle Onassis

After a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts.
Aristotle Onassis

If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
Aristotle Onassis

I have no friends and no enemies -- only competitors.
Aristotle Onassis

The more you own, the more you know you don't own.
Aristotle Onassis

To be successful, keep looking tanned, live in an elegant building (even if you're in the cellar), be seen in smart restaurants (even if you only nurse one drink) and if you borrow, borrow big.
Aristotle Onassis

Bill Gates Quotes

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
Bill Gates

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Bill Gates

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.
Bill Gates

Secrets For Success

The secret of success is consistency of purpose.
Benjamin Disraeli

I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: try to please everybody.
- Mr. Herbert Bayard Swope

How does one chip off the marble that doesn’t belong? … That comes about through five things: humility, reverence, inspiration, deep purpose, and joy. No great man has ever wise-cracked his way to greatness. Until one learns to lose one’s self he cannot find himself. No one can multiply himself by himself. He must first divide himself and give himself to the service of all, thus placing himself within all others through acts of thoughtfulness and service.
Walter Russell

Success is a journey, not a destination. So stop running.

The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.
- John D. Rockefeller

What lies still is easy to grasp;
What lies far off is easy to anticipate;
What is brittle is easy to shatter;
What is small is easy to disperse.
Yet a tree broader than a man can embrace is born of a tiny shoot;
A dam greater than a river can overflow starts with a clod of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles begins at the spot under one's feet.
Therefore deal with things before they happen;
Create order before there is confusion.
Tao Te Ching

To be successful, keep looking tanned, live in an elegant building (even if you're in the cellar), be seen in smart restaurants (even if you only nurse one drink) and if you borrow, borrow big.
Aristotle Onassis

He who cultivates that quiet, unobtrusive ecstasy of inner joyousness can scale any heights and be a leader in his field, no matter what that field is.
Walter Russell


Every successful man or great genius has three particular qualities in common. The most conspicuous of these is that they all produce a prodigious amount of work. The second is that they never know fatigue. And the third is that their minds grow more brilliant as they grow older, instead of less brilliant. Great men’s lives begin at forty, where the mediocre man’s life ends. The genius remains an ever-flowing fountain of creative achievement until the very last breath he draws.
Walter Russell, The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe


People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw


When I arrived at the point where I received public acclaim, I felt the most lowly, because I knew within myself that I had but begun to tap my inner resources.
Walter Russell