Quotes about perseverance

After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, "Oh, this pace is terrible!" But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself. So there is no need to worry about progress.

The human will, that force unseen,

The offspring of a deathless soul,

Can hew the way to any goal,

Though walls of granite intervene.

'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause — and of obstinacy in a bad one.

My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up.

For if he who resolveth bravely oftentimes falleth short, how shall it be with him who resolveth rarely or feebly?

When they are lying in their tents, unable to sleep and overwhelmed by sadness and regret, they say to themselves: Tomorrow, and only tomorrow, will I take another step. Besides, I can always turn back, because I know the road, but one more step won’t make much difference.’ Until one day, without warning, the road stops testing the traveller and begins to treat him generously. The traveller’s troubled spirit takes pleasure in the beauties and the challenges of the new landscape.

If victory is not theirs this time, it will be the next time. And if not the next time, then the time after that... The important thing is to get back on your feet. Only he who gives up is defeated. Everyone else is victorious.

Does a man who spent years preparing to climb the highest mountain in the world feel defeated when, on reaching that mountain, he discovers that nature has cloaked the summit in storm clouds? The man says... "...the weather will change and, one day, I will make it to the top. Meanwhile, you’ll still be here waiting for me.”

Others, even though they were defeated and feel humiliated by the things the winners are saying about them, will allow themselves to shed a few tears but will never succumb to self-pity. They know that this is a merely a pause in the fighting and that, for the moment, they are at a disadvantage. They try to work out what they did wrong and what they did right. They take advantage of this moment of defeat to rest, heal their wounds, devise new strategies and equip themselves better. Then the day dawns when a new battle knocks on their door. They are still afraid, but they have to act, either that or remain for ever lying on the ground. They get up and face their opponent, remembering the suffering they have endured and which they no longer wish to endure...

Here I am, trying to persuade myself that I always give the best of myself, and nature is telling me exactly the opposite: anyone truly committed to life never stops walking.

Routine has nothing to do with repetition. To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.

I ask myself: are defeats necessary?

Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for a dream, we have no experience and make mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.