Elusive Success Quotes & Sayings

We are as the dead," Sha said. "Our purpose is to dedicate our lives to the service of our lord. And, when it is necessary, to surrender those lives. When we become what we are, we lose our lives - our names, our family, our homes, and our honour. All that remains is our lord. — Jim Butcher

There are also dozens and dozens of success stories; many couples have emailed me with their original posts. I love reading these stories, but confess I am not as interested in drawing them as the unfinished, elusive ones. — Sophie Blackall

So much grief, so much anger. So unlike the usual Adrian. — Richelle Mead

Big don't mean ugly, and thin sho don't mean pretty. If a person wants to be pretty, they gotta walk pretty, talk pretty and act pretty. Can't nobody take pretty from you. — Daniel Black

TV is my sleeping pill. — David Janssen

It's not like every director in every movie is seeking me out by any means, there are a lot of things I'm not suited for, a lot of things I'm not interested in, and a lot of things that directors wouldn't be interested in me for. — John Hawkes

As Bartok put it so succinctly: "Competitions are for horses." Nothing could be more barbaric that the practice or ranking artists as though they were divers or figure skaters ... What one suspects is that the appetite for dividing the world into winners and losers, anointed and anonymous, is so compulsive that it feeds with special, vindictive hunger on the most elusive and ephemeral of subjects. For if music can be reduced to games of power and success, then innocence-love without profit-can be dealt a crushing blow. — Russell Sherman

In fact, for all the secrets and formulas, for all the self-proclaimed thought leadership, success in business is as elusive as ever. — Philip M. Rosenzweig

The artist works with a concentration of his whole personality, and the conscious part of it resolves conflicts, organized memories, and prevents him from trying to walk in two directions at the same time. — Henry Moore

I'm often asked how I define "success." It's an overused term, but I fundamentally view this elusive beast as a combination of two things - achievement and appreciation. One isn't enough:
Achievement without appreciation makes you ambitious but miserable.
Appreciation without achievement makes you unambitious but happy. — Timothy Ferriss

Elusive success is not the same as failure. — Damon Throop

I think it's a mistake to work on success in career. I've worked on my passions obsessively. How can I say what I want to say more precisely than the last time I said it? Success is such an elusive concept. When you work for it, I think you get it in a way you might regret it. — K'naan

Practice thinking peace. Remember, you become what you think about all day long. How often do you clutter your mind with thoughts of nonpeace? How many times a day do you say out loud how terrible the world is? How violent we have all become? How uncaring we seem to be? How racist we are? How little the government cares about us? All of these thoughts and their expression are indications that you have become trapped in a nonpeaceful mind and, therefore, a nonpeaceful world. Every time you bemoan the horrors of the world, or listen to media reports on all that is evil, or read tabloids that exploit the unpleasant facts about other's lives, you are continuing the conditioning that takes you away from becoming an instrument of thy peace. — Wayne W. Dyer

When I contemplate the accumulation of guilt and remorse which, like a garbage-can, I carry through life, and which is fed not only by the lightest action but by the most harmless pleasure, I feel Man to be of all living things the most biologically incompetent and ill-organized. Why has he acquired a seventy years life-span only to poison it incurably by the mere being of himself? Why has he thrown Conscience, like a dead rat, to putrefy in the well? — Cyril Connolly

I have no interest in art. Let me clarify - I have no interest in non-nude images. — Aziz Ansari

When my father died and was buried in a chapel overlooking Portsmouth - the same chapel in which General Eisenhower had prayed for success the night before D-Day in 1944 - I gave the address from the pulpit and selected as my text a verse from the epistle of Saul of Tarsus, later to be claimed as "Saint Paul," to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 8): Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. I chose this because of its haunting and elusive character, which will be with me at the last hour, and for its essentially secular injunction, and because it shone out from the wasteland of rant and complaint and nonsense and bullying which surrounds it. — Christopher Hitchens

Wall Street can be a dangerous place for investors. You have no choice but to do business there, but you must always be on your guard. The standard behavior of Wall Streeters is to pursue maximization of self-interest; the orientation is usually short term. This must be acknowledged, accepted, and dealt with. If you transact business with Wall Street with these caveats in mind, you can prosper. If you depend on Wall Street to help you, investment success may remain elusive. — Seth Klarman

Do not fall into the terrible trap of thinking that life depends on money and that, in comparison with money, anything else is devoid of value or dignity. This is nothing but an illusion! We cannot take money with us into the life beyond. Money does not bring us happiness. — Pope Francis

A weak, insecure nation needs sporting heroes, players larger than life on the cricketing field, who can transcend the limitations of their country and team. — Shashi Tharoor

I greatly enjoy reading the biographies of scientists, and when doing so I always hope to learn the secrets of their success. Alas, those secrets generally remain elusive. — Jack W. Szostak

Failure is inevitable. Success is elusive. — Steven Spielberg

It is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail — Attila The Hun

Amid the stirring and manifold activities of the age in which we live, to be neutral in the strife is to rank with the enemies of the Saviour. There is no greater foe to the spread of His cause in the world than the placid indifferentism which is too honorable to betray, while it is too careless or too cowardly to join Him. — William Morley Punshon