Accomplish Nothing Quotes & Sayings

Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. — Ayn Rand

He found himself filled with joy, for now his existence had a meaning. He had a future, because he was part of a world that had a future, and instead of wanting to decide for himself and determine that future for everyone else, he knew that he would be glad just to touch some small part of it. To marry and give happiness to his wife. To have a child and give it the same love that his parents gave him. To have a friend and ease his burdedn now and then. To have a skill or a secret and teach it to a student whose life might be changed a little by what he learned. Why had he dreamed of leading armies, whichwould accomplish nothing, when he could do these miraculous small things and change the world? — Orson Scott Card

You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you'll accomplish, and nothing more. — Orson Scott Card

Now, ideas are the raw material of progress. Everything first takes shape in the form of an idea. But an idea itself is worth nothing. An idea, like a machine, must have power applied to it before it can accomplish anything. The men who have won fame and fortune through having an idea are those who devoted every ounce of their strength and every dollar they could muster to putting it into operation. Ford had a big idea, but he had to sweat and suffer and sacrifice to make it work. — B.C. Forbes

Nothing you do makes much of a difference if you do not have charity. You can speak with tongues, have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries, and possess all knowledge; even if you have the faith to move mountains, without charity it won't profit you at all ... Without charity-or the pure love of Christ-whatever else we accomplish matters little. With it, all else becomes vibrant and alive. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Prayer is crucial in evangelism: Only God can change the heart of someone who is in rebellion against Him. No matter how logical our arguments or how fervent our appeals, our words will accomplish nothing unless God's Spirit prepares the way. — Billy Graham

If you set out to be liked, you will accomplish nothing. — Margaret Thatcher

It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing. — Charles F. Aked

Radical Islamic fundamentalists harbor contempt for our democratic way of life and, given the opportunity, will stop at nothing to accomplish their goal of bringing our country to its knees. — Paul Weyrich

If no one else, the dying must notice how unreal, how full of pretense, is all that we accomplish here, where nothing is allowed to be itself. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Nothing is more difficult to accomplish than changing outward actions without changing inward feelings. — John C. Maxwell

Set out with some definite purpose in life and accomplish that purpose. There is little that the human mind can conceive that is not possible of accomplishment. The thing to do is to make up your mind what you are going to drive for, and let nothing stand in the way of its ultimate accomplishment. — Charles M. Schwab

The ways of God "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."1 Holy Scripture never orders and never counsels us to do the impossible. By these words, then, the Lord Jesus does not command us to accomplish the very works and ways of God, which no one can attain in perfection. But He invites us to model ourselves on them, as much as is possible, by applying ourselves to imitate them. We can do this with the help of grace and we should do so. And as the Bishop John said, nothing is more suitable to man than to imitate his Creator, and to carry out, to the degree that he is able, the will of God. — Thomas Aquinas

A person has to have a target, a goal, a mission statement, a dream, a vision of what she/he wants to accomplish, or nothing lasting will be realized. — Teresa Hampton

Nothing very new. By taking good care of yourselves you are of service to me and my family as well as yourselves, no matter what you do, even if you don't think so at present. But if you neglect yourselves and are unwilling to live, as though following tracks, in accordance with what we now say and have said in the past too, then no matter how much or how seriously you agree with me at present you will accomplish next to nothing. — Socrates

If you rely on others to accomplish something in life, you'll end up accomplishing nothing. — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

those who strive to delay or hinder the restoration of the church will accomplish nothing. God is its vindicator, and he will judge all peoples. — John Calvin

There has been nothing in heaven or on earth which has not witnessed that Jesus Christ is God, Lord and Master, and the great Ambassador of the Father sent here below to accomplish the salvation of mankind. All — John Calvin

There is nothing in your destiny, nothing in your future that you cannot accomplish. — Larry King

Sincere compliments cost nothing and can accomplish so much. In ANY relationship, they are the applause that refreshes. — Steve Goodier

Literary or scientific, liberal or specialist, all our education is predominantly verbal and therefore fails to accomplish what it is supposed to do. Instead of transforming children into fully developed adults, it turns out students of the natural sciences who are completely unaware of Nature as the primary fact of experience, it inflicts upon the world students of the humanities who know nothing of humanity, their own or anyone else's. — Aldous Huxley

When the urgent crowds out the important, people urgently accomplish nothing of value. — Orrin Woodward

A lifetime of planning can accomplish nothing. Ten seconds of bravery can conquer a lifetime.
-Racquel — Brandy Nacole

Nothing is so difficult but that man will accomplish it. — Horace

Don't try to be good at everything, don't spread yourself so thin that you accomplish nothing; rather, pick a few things and do them well. Excel in those areas and you'll excel in life. — Rachel Van Dyken

Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. you'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. — Louis Sachar

I believe there's nothing I can't accomplish. — Isaiah Mustafa

If you have the passion to do something, work hard, stay honest and nothing can stop you to accomplish it. — Jahangir Khan

Don't think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we've acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act. — Steven Pressfield

You make mistakes, people die. You move forward. Perfect people accomplish nothing. — Robert Ferrigno

Yes," some objectors declare, "I would like to expand my consciousness, but I feel that I must do it for myself."
To this, our usual reply is that doing everything for oneself can be an unbearably limiting factor as well as an exercise in egotism. What if we had to weave all our own clothes, grow our own food, make our own paper and so forth? In actuality we accomplish hardly anything without external instruments, tools or technological aids. Our manifest interdependence attests to nature's determination to force us to overcome isolationist tendencies. Even our two most essential physiological functions, eating and breathing, serve as constant reminders that in every respect we are obliged to use what lies outside of the confines of the bodily organism.
In the end, we do nothing alone and everything by our selves. — Marcia Moore

I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it. — Louis Sachar

I have a little bit of a temper, but it's ... a useless temper, ... It doesn't accomplish anything, generally. It's just a lot of ranting and raving and nothing, so David (Chase) probably saw that and put it into the character. — James Gandolfini

It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything, or achieve anything, or accomplish one more thing. That, exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance. — Rob Bell

watching TV and playing solitaire is not a proper life. It's not living. It's killing time, and that's hardly the same. You start asking yourself too many questions when your day is reduced to these rote activities that accomplish nothing. You start to wonder — Catherine Ryan Hyde

everything comes if a man would only wait. I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose, must accomplish it and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment". — Earl Nightingale

If you take advantage of everything that America has to offer, there's nothing you can't accomplish. — Geraldine Ferraro

It is at the approach of extreme danger when a hollow puppet can accomplish nothing, that power falls into the mighty hands of nature, of the spirit giant-born, who listens only to himself, and knows nothing of compacts. — Friedrich Schiller

Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, in hopes of the good ultimately outweighing the bad, and with the understanding that being pessimistic about everything accomplishes nothing. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist. — Dale Carnegie

There will be many times in your lives
at school, and more particularly when you are a grown up
when people will distract or divert you from what needs to be done. You may even welcome the distraction. But if you use it as an excuse for not doing what you suppose to do, you can blame no one but yourself. If you truly wish to accomplish something, you should allow nothing to stop you, and chances are you'll succeed. — Julie Andrews Edwards

When I lament and darken over my diminishments, I accomplish nothing. It's better to sit at the window all day, pleased to watch birds, barns, and flowers. — Donald Hall

The future of nations cannot be frozen ... cannot be foreseen. If we are going to accomplish anything in our time we must approach our problem in the knowledge that there is nothing rigid or immutable in human affairs. History is a story of growth, decay and change. If no provision, no allowance is made for change by peaceful means, it will come anyway - and with violence. — Herbert Hoover

There is nothing so elastic as the human mind. The more we are obliged to do, the more we are able to accomplish. — Tryon Edwards

Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last. — Hamilton Holt

If, as is only too possible, we are to perish, let us see to it that we do not perish without having existed. The powerful forces that we have to fight are preparing to crush us; and it is true that they can prevent us from existing fully, that is to say from stamping the world with the seal of our will. But there is one sphere in which they are powerless. They cannot stop us from working towards a clear comprehension of the object of our efforts, so that, if we cannot accomplish that which we will, we may at least have willed it, and not just have blindly wished for it; and, on the other hand, our weakness may indeed prevent us from winning, but not from comprehending the force by which we are crushed. Nothing in the world can prevent us from thinking clearly. — Simone Weil

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment. — Benjamin Disraeli

No, none of these things are the key. When it comes right down to it, I know of only one factor that separates those who consistently shine from those who don't: The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. Nothing else has the same kind of impact on people's ability to achieve and to accomplish whatever their minds and hearts desire. — John C. Maxwell

If this is vise I want no virtue.
...
I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.
Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.
...
But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else. — Ayn Rand

It is human nature to try hardest to accomplish the very thing we are told is impossible. Why? Because innately we know that nothing's impossible. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others. — Danny Thomas

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. — Pearl S. Buck

You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something - and you can't. Not from any fault of yours. You simply can do nothing, neither great nor little - not a thing in the world - not even marry an old maid, or get a wretched 600-ton cargo of coal to its port of destination. — Joseph Conrad

I'm obsessed with packing in as much work as possible during each day, simply because there is only so much time you have in a lifetime. There is nothing better than to go home at night and know that you've done everything that you could do to accomplish your work — Arnold Schwarzenegger

[Clayton] Christensen had seen dozens of companies falter by going for immediate payoffs rather than long-term growth, and he saw people do the same thing. In three hours at work, you could get something substantial accomplished, and if you failed to accomplish it you felt the pain right away. If you spent three hours at home with your family, it felt like you hadn't done a thing, and if you skipped it nothing happened. So you spent more and more time at the office, on high-margin, quick-yield tasks, and you even believed that you were staying away from home for the sake of your family. He had seen many people tell themselves that they could divide their lives into stages, spending the first part pushing forward their careers, and imagining that at some future point they would spend time with their families
only to find that by then their families were gone. — Larissa MacFarquhar

Find something you enjoy and love and you're passionate about. And then dedicate all you've got to make it a success. And if you have those two things, I think with your passion and dedication, there is nothing that you cannot accomplish. — Anousheh Ansari

Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction. — Ray Bradbury

When we stand together there is nothing, nothing, nothing we cannot accomplish. — Bernie Sanders

To accomplish nothing and die of the strain — Emil Cioran

A big part of becoming a spy is learning all the secrets that are used to keep things under wraps. A spy has to be able to pass information and do their job without being noticed or caught in the act. While there are a few things that they do to accomplish this, nothing is quite as important as a spy's disguise. — P.D. Adler

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life — Muhammad Ali

Prayer and meditation are my inner secret and my outer secret. My muscles are next to nothing compared to the muscles of the professional bodybuilders and weightlifters. It is because of the strength of my prayer-life and meditation-life that I am able to accomplish these feats of strength. — Sri Chinmoy

When we compared our dream list to our "joy and meaning" list, we realized that by merely letting go of the list of things we want to accomplish and acquire, we would be actually living our dream - not striving to make it happen in the future, but living it right now. The things we were working toward did nothing in terms of making our life fuller. — Brene Brown

I wake up every morning thinking about all the great things I am going to accomplish that day, and I go to bed every night thinking about all the even greater things I'm going to have to accomplish tomorrow to make up for the nothing I did today. — John A. Ashley

I love the adrenaline of my bike. I always have. I try my best to let it chase away the feel of Olivia at my back, but I think nothing short of a week locked up in a bedroom with her can accomplish that. And oh what a week that would be. — M. Leighton

The truth of the matter is that there's nothing you can't accomplish if: (1) You clearly decide what it is that you're absolutely committed to achieving, (2) You're willing to take massive action, (3) You notice what's working or not, and (4) You continue to change your approach until you achieve what you want, using whatever life gives you along the way. — Tony Robbins

You can accomplish a hundred other things but if you do not accomplish the one thing for which you have been sent, it will be as if you have done nothing. — Rumi

Until we have a passionate love for our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament we shall accomplish nothing, — Saint Peter

All motivation is self-motivation. Your family, your boss, or your co-workers can try to get your engine going, but until you decide what to accomplish, nothing will happen. — Seth Godin

Success has nothing to do with what we accomplish for ourselves, but the amount of hard works we put forward to others — Diyar Harraz

Why talk to a person if you had nothing in common with them? What would that accomplish, other than a painfully stunted conversation? — L. H. Cosway

If you're a Christian, here's the good news: who you really are has nothing to do with you - how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior, your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on. Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ's accomplishment, not yours; His strength, not yours; His performance, not yours; His victory, not yours. — Tullian Tchividjian

It would be as if a king sent you to a village on a specific mission. If you went and performed a hundred other tasks, but neglected to accomplish the task for which you were sent, it would be as though you had done nothing. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I don't know one thing about the future. I don't know what the next hour will hold. There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe. Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection. I don't know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world. Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love. — Eugene H. Peterson

There is nothing the Lord has asked of us that in faith we cannot accomplish. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Those who have chosen the path of least resistance in life, who cannot bear to bring themselves to make a stern value-judgment in criticism of their own most intimate feelings, achieve what they deserve: not self-understanding but radical self-superficialization, not a discovered but a self-ascribed identity that explains nothing, reveals nothing, means nothing, and ultimately accomplishes nothing culturally or intellectually. — Kenny Smith

By the altar, which is made of massive slabs of stone untouched by tools since hewn from the quarry and set up in this vast edifice, a barefooted priest wearing a linen tunic waits for the Levite to hand over the turtledoves. He takes the first one, carries it to a comer of the altar, and with a single blow knocks the head from its body. [ ... ] Joseph has nothing more to accomplish here, he must withdraw, collect his wife and child, and return home. Mary is pure once more, not in the strict sense of the word, because purity is something to which most human beings, and above all women, can scarcely hope to aspire. — Jose Saramago

Nothing is impossible for the people of God who trust in the power of God to accomplish the will of God. — David Platt

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. RALPH WALDO EMERSON — Jack Canfield

I am certainly not regenerating French art, but am struggling hard to accomplish something on an unlucky piece of paper which has done me no harm at all, and on which, believe me, I am doing nothing that is good ... I hope things will improve eventually; as it is, I am pretty wretched. — Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

If you accomplish nothing in life... do not tell your friends... they expected it. If you accomplish success in life... find new friends,"... Redmond Herring — Redmond Herring

China's own recent history proves that when it opens itself, there is nothing its people cannot accomplish. A more open China will lead to a more prosperous and stable China. That's good for China, the United States and, indeed, the entire world. — Gary Locke

Jesus didn't accomplish everything so that you could accomplish nothing. — Bill Johnson

My existence is such that "I" do not really exist. At the end of understanding so much I understand that I know nothing. I suffer for being surrounded by intense suffering and yet I'm deeply suspicious if first of all there is indeed any consciousness except me. I strive to find the artist who might have fathered this great universal art but feel myself to be too feeble to accomplish this seemingly unattainable mission. Yet I have every respect for life, and it is this sheer respect that makes me live. — Kedar Joshi

Countless are the women parasites who, to satisfy their craving for pleasure and luxury, impoverish father or husband. These lame limbs in the social organism, which themselves accomplish nothing, but for whom all other limbs work, are the most flagrant example of womanly immorality in the present. — Ellen Key

Motherhood is the most beautiful, exciting thing, and there's nothing that I feel like I can't accomplish while having children in my life. I would sacrifice having more years of being wherever I want whenever I want for years with my kids. — Hayden Panettiere

What I want to accomplish artistically amounts to nothing more than fulfilling the promise of the American Revolution. — L. Neil Smith

The best ideas in the world will accomplish nothing if you leave them on paper. Talk about them. Debate, discuss, argue. Put them into action. Then you can change the world. — Kevin Stirtz

You may think that you are insignificant in the great plan of God, but you are not. You are tremendously important to God - so much so that Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit lives in you. You may seem small in your own eyes, and this is good; because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. However, don't let your humility become sin by making you believe you can do nothing for God. God can use you to help Him accomplish His will on this earth. — Warren W. Wiersbe

There is nothing that so raises a young man's self-esteem, that so contributes to the formation of his character as for him to find himself unexpectedly confronted with a task which he has to accomplish entirely on his own initiative and by his own efforts. — Stefan Zweig

The master accomplishes more and more by doing less and less until finally he accomplishes everything by doing nothing. — Laozi

What are you doing?" He massaged my feet with his fingers. "I have big hands. Your tiny little fingers will accomplish nothing. His ministrations were strong but not painful. I wanted to argue but I couldn't. It felt so good. I sank into the cushion and released a loud sigh. "Oh my god..." It came out as a moan rather than a painful groan. He chuckled "I'm good at everything. — E.L. Todd

There is literally nothing that I ever asked to do, that I asked the blessed Creator to help me to do, that I have not been able to accomplish. — George Washington Carver

Talent without craft is like fuel without an engine, it burns wildly but accomplishes nothing. — Robert McKee

I have grown weary of literature: silence alone comforts me. If I continue to write, it's because I have nothing more to accomplish in this world except to wait for death. Searching for the word in darkness. Any little success invades me and puts me in full view of everyone. I long to wallow in the mud. I can scarcely control my need for self-abasement, my craving for licentiousness and debauchery. Sin tempts me, forbidden pleasures lure me. I want to be both pig and hen, then kill them and drink their blood. — Clarice Lispector

There is nothing which persevering effort and unceasing and diligent care cannot accomplish. — Seneca The Younger

According to Augustine, the power of sin is such that it takes hold of our will, and as long as we are under its sway we cannot move our will to be rid of it. The most we can accomplish is to struggle between willing and not willing, which does little more than show the powerlessness of our will against itself. The sinner can will nothing but sin. Within that condition, there certainly are good and bad choices; but even the best choices still fall within the category of sin. — Justo L. Gonzalez

Your abilities are unlimited. Nothing is impossible for you to accomplish, because you're sufficient in God's sufficiency (2 Corinthians 3:5). — Chris Oyakhilome

Ministry that costs nothing, accomplishes nothing. — John Henry Jowett

Perhaps no answer would ever be forthcoming, but if he had learned one thing in the last couple of weeks, it was that they must move on. Dwelling in the past would accomplish nothing. — Jaye L. Knight

That humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them. — William Hazlitt