Quotes & Sayings About Doing Things That Are Hard

Your life's course will not be determined by doing the things that you are certain you can do. Those are the easy things. It will be determined by whether you try the things that are hard. — Sheryl Sandberg

I'm truly blessed to be doing what I've always wanted - CREATE. I have found a freedom that is hard to put into words. I always wondered about my projects - which artists are working on what, and which directions should I take? I don't even think of those things now. I passionately go into my studio and ask myself, what would I like to create today? — Steve Kaufman

There is a perennial and unobtrusive view that morality consists in such things as telling the truth, paying one's debts, respecting one's parents and doing no voluntary harm to anyone. Those are all things easy to say and hard to do; they do not attract much attention, and win little honor in the world. — Allan Bloom

Yes, genuine pain and loss coexisted with the deliverance, but it did not have the last word. Its power to hurt him was weakened because he could see the bigger things God was doing in, for, and through him. You can probably find similar events in your life. Hard things persisted, there was no apparent deliverance, but, with closer inspection, you notice a deliverance that went much deeper. And these are eleventh-hour deliverances on this side of death and eternity. Imagine if you gradually developed the spiritual skill to see beyond the immediate moment and catch a glimpse of the glories to come. The basic outline is clear: if you have thrown your lot in with Jesus, everything he has is yours, even the kingdom itself. It would be impossible to ask for more. Those who imitate Abraham's faith are always pushing the last minute farther out until it comes even after physical death. Such a person is fearless. A — Edward T. Welch

Creation is not a moment of inspiration but a lifetime of endurance. The drawers of the world are full of things begun. Unfinished sketches, pieces of invention, incomplete product ideas, notebooks with half-formulated hypotheses, abandoned patents, partial manuscripts. Creating is more monotony than adventure. It is early mornings and late nights: long hours doing work that will likely fail or be deleted or erased - a process without progress that must be repeated daily for years. Beginning is hard, but continuing is harder. Those who seek a glamorous life should not pursue art, science, innovation, invention, or anything else that needs new. Creation is a long journey where most turns are wrong and most ends are dead. The most important thing creators do is work. The most important thing they don't do is quit. The — Kevin Ashton

As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.
What has happened?' the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby carriage along the sidewalk.
Why, we've had a revolution, your Majesty
as you ought to know very well,' replied the man; 'and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.'
Hm!' said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. 'If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?'
I really do not know,' replied the man, with a deep sigh. 'Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron. — L. Frank Baum

I think people read the tabloids because they want to see you eating a burger, or out of your makeup or doing something stupid because they just want to see that you're like everyone else. And that's OK. I don't want to catch myself anymore saying that my life is hard, because the good far outweighs the bad in my life. And it's easier to focus on those things, on the things that are important. — Leonardo DiCaprio

You must have six boxes of cat food in that cupboard."
"Moshe gets cranky if I don't keep a variety."
After tasking his breakfast, Alan found it better than he had expected. "I have a hard time understanding anyone as strong-willed as you being intimidated by a temperamental cat."
Shelby lifted her shoulders and continued to eat. "We all have our weaknesses.Besides,as roommates go, he's perfect.He doesn't listen in on my phone calls or borrow my clothes."
"Are those your prerequisites?"
"They're certainly in the top ten."
Watching her,Alan nodded. She'd plowed hre way through the toast in record time. "If I promised to restrain myself from doing either of those things, would you marry me? — Nora Roberts

My definition of success is doing what you love. I feel many people do things because they feel they have to, and are hesitant to risk following their passion. And obviously, yeah, it's hard right now. But maybe there's a chance that if you get laid off, maybe that's your saving grace, your chance to restart. — Tony Hawk

Often, I find it really hard to see what I'm doing when I'm in the thick of things. I can get too precious and have to force myself to put my paintings aside. There's a wall in my studio where I hang paintings that I think are done or nearly done. Over time, I'll realise which ones are working and which aren't. — Cecily Brown

Video games teach these boys that if you manipulate things a certain way, you will get an easy win. These boys have little interaction with people during the years when such interaction is crucial in developing the skills they need to handle themselves as an adult. They shut themselves off to the real world and get caught up in their fantasy worlds. After a while, they prefer their fantasies to the real world. In the real world, things are not so easy to control. They can't rule with a joystick. In the real world they have to talk to people. They have to work. That brings up another point. Laziness. A guy addicted to video games can waste hour after hour after hour without doing anything productive. Playing games is easy. Studying is hard. Taking care of daily chores is hard. Working on a real job is hard. We parents are to blame for some of this because it started out as a way to entertain our kids. We — Leonard Sax

Trying so hard to make things go our way in this world, doing so much leaning, is exhausting. I am convinced that is exactly what Jesus had in mind when he said, 'Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest' (Matthew 11:28 NASB). — Van Harden

The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important. — Sam Altman

When something is new and hard and bright, there ought to be something a little better for it than just being safe, since the safe things are just the things that folks have been doing so long they have worn the edges off and there's nothing to the doing of them that leaves a man to say, That was not done before and it cannot be done again. — William Faulkner

Why is it so hard to think about dying? "Because," Morrie continued, "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do." And facing death changes all that? "Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently. — Mitch Albom

I missed a lot of good times, doing things that I shouldn't have been doing. There are certain mistakes I'd like to change, but I'm not going to trip on it to hard. — Jay Adams

Things that we are right in thinking bad, must be bad to God as well as to us; but may there not be things so far above us, that we cannot take them in, and they seem bad because they are so far above us in goodness that we see them partially and untruly? There must be room in his wisdom for us to mistake! He would try to trust! He would say, "If thou art my father, be my father, and comfort thy child. Perhaps thou hast some way! Perhaps things are not as thou wouldst have them, and thou art doing what can be done to set them right! If thou art indeed true to thy own, it were hard not to be believed - hard that one of thine own should not trust thee, should not give thee time to make things clear, should behave to thee as if thou wouldst not explain, when it is that we are unable to understand! — George MacDonald

I realized that all my life, my values were based upon typical middle-class American values: hard work, doing good, living well, owning things, following the rules & being the best I can be ... but God clearly says, those are not MY values. I value justice, mercy & humility. — John Green

People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they have hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things. — Stephen Covey

Children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works. — Clayton Christensen

All camps are hard, that's what they're intended to be. They make you focus when you're tired, when you don't feel like doing things, and to see how long you can retain and pay attention. — Michael Strahan

I think that when you decide to dedicate yourself to creative endeavors and surround yourself with people who are creative, you very quickly learn how hard it is to survive doing those kinds of things, not to mention make a living at them. — Oscar Isaac

It's hard to write about this mask because the spiritual disciplines are good things. The problem is not the fact that we do them; it is our good-girl interpretation of what doing these things means. For many years, I lived as a believer in God but I did not live *from* God. I was a child of the God of grace but I was looking for life in the law. — Emily P. Freeman

It's never too late to change your mind and be who you were meant to be. Our minds can be really powerful things, and they can come up with a million reasons as to why you can't make a change. Our minds can say that it's not logical, or it's been like this for too long, or it's too hard, or what are people going to think. But sometimes it's more important to live from your gut and from your heart than from your head... It's okay to decide that being happy is worth more than getting the law degree, or marrying your high-school sweetheart because they were nice enough, or being an actor because you think you're incapable of doing anything else. It's never too late to take charge of your destiny and make a different contribution to the world. — Lisa Jakub

But everyone knows someone who has died, I said.
Why is it so hard to think about dying?
'Because,' Morrie continued, 'most of us walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.'
And facing death changes all that?
'Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.'
He sighed. 'Learn how to die, and you learn how to live. — Mitch Albom

What you're doing is building a horrible kind of logic. People read what you write and they say, 'Yes, he is talking about things that really happen,' and they keep reading, and it makes sense to them. You're explaining things that can't be defended, and the explanations themselves are mad, just bizarre - but you offer them with such confidence. It was because she kept the chain on the door; it was because he needed to let off steam after a hard day's scraping and bowing at work; it was because she was irritating and stupid; it was because she lied to him, made a fool of him; it was because she had to die, she just had to, it makes dramatic sense; it was because 'nothing is more poetic than the death of a beautiful woman'; it was because of this, it was because of that. It's obscene to make such things reasonable. — Helen Oyeyemi

The greatest heroes in life are those that never give up on someone. They stick it out and make it work. They sacrifice things in their life, in order to help others grow. They give up what they want because someone needs it more. They work hard and overcome adversity. They fail for a moment, but get back up on their feet to show others they don't have to stay down. They show their loved ones that love is not "proved" by conformity. They teach others that having a voice is a sign of courage, and they will not stay silent to make people feel comfortable. They are fearless and will do whatever it takes to bring about the greatness in the ones they love because doing so brings them peace. Their name is
MOM. — Shannon L. Alder

The thing that's hard about it - the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance - is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now - the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong. — Dexter Palmer

You hope you can fix it with the personnel that you have. On offense, we are doing some great things, but we did not execute. This group of men that I represent likes to work hard. — Les Miles

There's lots of charity stuff that I can do. There are actually a million things to do here, but it would be very hard for me to stop going overseas, because I've been doing that for longer than I've been playing in the WNBA. — Sue Wicks

It's hard to think it's important to try out as cheerleader when you're starring on Broadway. But you do kind of miss the things that I now see my children doing. I'm just happy they are not actors. The Valentine's Day dance is really important. Pitching in Little League is very important. And the medals and the scouts are really important. — Bonnie Bedelia

I believe that we are missing a great opportunity. We as Republicans are not really emphasizing what brings us together, and that's conservative values: love of the country. Love of family. Personal responsibility. Hard work. Optimism. Those are the things that we should be communicating to Latinos, and we're doing that very poorly. — Lionel Sosa

So stop eating yourself up. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt. Life is like that. I know I sound like I'm preaching from a pulpit, but it's about time you learned to live like this. You try too hard to make life fit your way of doing things.If you don't want to spend time in an insane asylum, you have to open up a little more and let yourself go with life's natural flow. — Haruki Murakami

Over time I've learned, surprisingly, that it's tremendously hard to get teams to be super ambitious. It turns out most people haven't been educated in this kind of moonshot thinking. They tend to assume that things are impossible, rather than starting from real-world physics and figuring out what's actually possible. It's why we've put so much energy into hiring independent thinkers at Google, and setting big goals. Because if you hire the right people and have big enough dreams, you'll usually get there. And even if you fail, you'll probably learn something important. It's also true that many companies get comfortable doing what they have always done, with a few incremental changes. This kind of incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time, especially in technology, because change tends to be revolutionary not evolutionary. So you need to force yourself to place big bets on the future. — Eric Schmidt

The law presumably says that it is finest to keep as quiet as possible in misfortunes and not be irritated, since the good and bad in such things aren't plain, nor does taking it hard get one anywhere, not are any of the human things worthy of great seriousness ... One must accept the fall of the dice and settle one's affairs accordingly
in whatever way argument declares would be best. One must not behave like children who have stumbled and who hold on to the hurt place and spend their time in crying out; rather one must always habituate the soul to turn as quickly as possible to curing and setting aright what has fallen and is sick, doing away with lament by medicine. — Socrates

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go. — Randall Munroe

The older you get, the easier it is to get injured. But what I've learned the hard way is that the more excess weight you have, the more likely you are to get injured doing everyday things. — Steve Howey

We too often let the material things serve as indicators that we're doing well, even though something inside us tells us that were not doing our best. That we are avoiding that which is hard, but also necessary. That we are shrinking from rather than rising to the challenges of the age. — Barack Obama

...I think of all the people quietly doing so many things that are hard. — George Hodgman

Simply put, if you are not doubting yourself or not thinking of other things that you could be doing instead of the task at hand, you're probably not working hard enough — Dos Remedios, Robert

Develop the habit of doing unpleasant things quickly and without hesitation. If you are going to jump in the cold water, jump in the cold water. If you need to get up, get your ass out of bed. Do the dishes that need doing. Finish the hard jobs at work while everyone else is coming up with excuses to get out of them. — Rory Miller

More people than ever are being paid to think, instead of just doing routine tasks. Yet making complex decisions and solving new problems is difficult for any stretch of time because of some real biological limits on your brain. Surprisingly, one of the best ways to improve mental performance is to understand these limits. In act 1, Emily discovers why thinking requires so much energy, and develops new techniques for dealing with having too much to do. Paul learns about the space limits of his brain, and works out how to deal with information overload. Emily finds out why it's so hard to do two things at once, and rethinks how she organizes her work. Paul discovers why he is so easily distracted, and works on how to stay more focused. Then he finds out how to stay in his brain's "sweet spot." In the last scene, Emily discovers that her problem-solving techniques need improving, and learns how to have breakthroughs when she needs them most. — David Rock

Looking back, I remember my family laughing a lot. We were never the kind of people that dwelled on hard times. My family laughs when things are tough. Growing up like that, I got used to making jokes about things that were difficult. So when I started doing stand-up, that's what I went towards. — Cristela Alonzo

People are wrong when they say things like, "I didn't have time to think." If you're really worried, or really miserable, those feelings come welling up around the edges of the other things you're doing, so that you are in the feelings even when you're working hard at something else. — Diana Wynne Jones

How often do you think we write our own ending before the story is even finished? How often do we give up on ourselves when our lives are just starting? Things get hard and we immediately back away and assume that means we're going in the wrong direction, doing the wrong thing. If anything, when the waters get thick, that's our sign to keep going. — Rachel Van Dyken