On Your Laurels Quotes & Sayings

The laurels of victory are at the point of the enemy bayonets. They must be plucked there ; they must be carried by a hand-to-hand fight if one really means to conquer. — Ferdinand Foch

I don't want to be remembered for my activities of my past, but for what I am doing today. By that I mean, I don't want to rest on my laurels satisfied by my past deeds. I want to contribute to the advancement of our Folk each and everyday. — Richard Kemp

Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Isn't it true that when some couple celebrates their tenth or fifteenth anniversary they seem far from triumphant? In fact they seem duped while dirty Uncle Harry, the rake, seems to wear the laurels. — John Cheever

Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praise, ye laurels. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

[Fringe] was just about doing the job, or trying to do the job, properly. It was never a job that you could rest on your laurels. It was a very challenging 43 minutes of television that we were shooting, every week. — John Noble

Even though I've had the body of work I've had, and the success I've had, I do not rest on my laurels whatsoever. — Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Never look back, except for an occasional glance, look ahead and plan for the future. Success is not built on past laurels, but rather on a continuous activity. Keep busy searching out new ideas and, experimentally, keep ahead of the times, or at least up with them. — Dorothy Draper

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. — John Milton

You can't rest on your laurels. You have to continue to innovate; you have to continue to be different. — Keith Belling

You see, a laurel needs to grow. I can't do much about that. But I can keep the rain off a few musicians heads, can't I?" A sly smile wound it's way onto his face. "So God will tend the laurels and keep them wet. And I will tend the players and keep them dry. And wiser minds than mine will decide when to bring the two together." -Count Threpe — Patrick Rothfuss

All my laurels you have riven away, and my roses; yet in spite of you, there is one crown I bear away with me ... One thing without stain, unspotted from the world, in spite of doom mine own! And that is ... my white plume. — Edmond Rostand

I don't know all the reasons for these achievements, but I know that I love what I do and I have never wanted to rest on my laurels. — Ahmed H. Zewail

do you reckon to win the everlasting laurels without a conflict? — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

If you wish to collect complimentary material for a record of yourself, never appeal to your relations. They may be proud of you as an asset to the family name, but they have a gift for remembering your gawky period privately, the follies and faults you committed and have forgotten. You may have come up in the world with a laurel on your brow, but if you go back home forty years later wearing two laurels on your brow, and a noble expression, they will miss the point. — Corra May Harris

Let war yield to peace, laurels to paeans. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

As entrepreneurs, we must continue to ask ourselves 'What's next?' It takes humility to realize that we don't know everything, not to rest on our laurels and know that we must keep learning and observing. — Cher Wang

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

But at the same time you can't assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the laurels of those victories for the rest of your life. — Angela Davis

I have been accused of being a very simplistic, very lyrical player, and that's okay. That just comes from the blues, which is my background. But every day you wake up and transcend. You can't ever rest on your laurels. — Carlos Santana

The people who help us grow toward true self offer unconditional love, neither judging us to be deficient nor trying to force us to change but accepting us exactly as we are. And yet this unconditional love does not lead us to rest on our laurels. Instead, it surrounds us with a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out - a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires. — Parker J. Palmer

Deathless laurel is the victor's due. — John Dryden

We did a lot of press for the last film and now for this one. We don't rest on our laurels. — Shawn Wayans

You never want to rest on your laurels. You want to keep doing things that terrify you. — Kate Walsh

I consider myself lucky that Sheila Johnson, the cofounder of Black Entertainment Television, didn't choose to rest on her very impressive business laurels. Her luscious 100 percent modal scarves, printed with photos she takes all over the world, are gorgeous. Wearing one is like being wrapped in a hug. — Gayle King

I'm actually doing what I want with my life. I do sometime think I could just shut up and rest on my laurels and say: you know what guys, I'll operate out of the pocket you put me in ... but no way! No way I'm gonna do that! I'd just get bored stiff the first minute. — Paul McCartney

Never, ever rest on your laurels. Today's laurels are tomorrow's compost. — Tom Peters

It's funny that because a lot of old jazz is being sampled now, you are finding a lot of young kids, a lot of scenesters and clubgoers, who are getting praise, laurels and dates with women because they listen to people like Herbie Hancock. In my day, listening to Herbie Hancock would have gotten you beaten up. — Brett Milano

Every world crowns its own kings, laurels it own gods. A Hans Anderson book cover opens its worlds: the snowqueen, bluewhite as ice, flies in a sleigh through her snow-thick air: our hearts are ice. Always: sludge, offal, shit against palaces of diamond. That man could dream god and heaven: how mud labors. We burn in our own fire. — Sylvia Plath

With racing, you never rest on your laurels, and there are no counterfeits. — Julie Krone

I think that men know how to romance a woman and most do it well, at least for a time, otherwise women wouldn't marry them. The problem is that most of them begin to rest on their laurels. — Nicholas Sparks

I'm always trying to improve my skills as an actor. I think it shows in 'El Gringo;' it shows in the new 'Universal Soldier.' You can't rest on your laurels; you've got to keep improving. — Scott Adkins

I'm not retiring. I am graduating. Today is my graduation day. Retirement means that you'll just go ahead and live on your laurels and surf all day in Oceanside. It ain't going to happen. — Junior Seau

It's about doing things that you haven't done before, where you're still kind of a beginner, and not resting on your laurels. — Caterina Fake

Once you fall into habits, I think, you're dead as an artist. You have to challenge yourself and never rest on your laurels, never think about what you've done in the past. — Jonathan Lethem

He (Leo) forced his fists to unclench. "Look, lady, we're not going all Hunger Games on each other. Isn't going to happen." "But you will win a fabulous honor!" Nike reached into a basket at her side and produced a wreath of thick leaves and laurels. "This crown of leaves could be yours! You can wear it on your head! Think of the glory! — Rick Riordan

You never sit on your laurels. It is always a case of trying to work on your deficiencies as much as working on your strengths. — Brian O'Driscoll

And once you've found success, don't stop. It's not about being insatiable; it's about not resting on your laurels. — Sophia Amoruso

To be a real entrepreneur you always have to be looking forward. The moment you rest on your laurels is the moment your competition overtakes you. — Richard Branson

Scars do not bother me. They are the laurels of the survivor. — Patricia Briggs

When you rest on your laurels is right when you have the risk. It exists for every company, no matter how big. — David Sze

Too much success gets you resting on your laurels and creates a kind of quicksand that you can't get out of. — Colin Wilson

I'm always hungry for the next thing. I'm never resting on my laurels. — Constance Wu

For the city, his city, stood unchanging on the edge of time: the same burning dry city of his nocturnal terrors and the solitary pleasures of puberty, where flowers rusted and salt corroded, where nothing had happened for four centuries except a slow aging among withered laurels and putrefying swamps. In winter sudden devastating downpours flooded the latrines and turned the streets into sickening bogs. In summer an invisible dust as harsh as red-hot chalk was blown into even the best-protected corners of the imagination by mad winds that took the roofs off the houses and carried away children through the air. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I must leave others to wear the laurels that I have sown. — John Adams

Platonic England, house of solitudes,
rests in its laurels and its injured stone — Geoffrey Hill

Challenge is the opportunity for greatness. People do their best when there is an opportunity to change how things currently stand. Maintaining the status quo facilitates mediocrity. Those who embrace this practice do not wish to rest on their laurels. They motivate others to exceed their limits and look for innovative ways to improve the organization. — James M. Kouzes

Georgia is in an enviable position today, but we can't rest on our laurels. — Roy Barnes

When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier. — Thomas Jefferson

With a terrible script you hustle and try to make it better. But with a good script it can be trouble because you rest on your laurels, so to speak, you think it's going to translate easily. — Robert Downey Jr.

It was the very worst kind of Banbury-Road house, depressing, with laurels. The front door was opened by a slut. I had never seen a slut before but recognized the genus without difficulty as soon as I set eyes on this one. — Nancy Mitford

Forcing modern speakers of English to not - whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn't done in Latin makes about as much sense as forcing modern residents of England to wear laurels and togas. — Steven Pinker

I'm always trying to do stuff I haven't done before or challenge myself so I'm not resting on my laurels all of the time because if I just found my little niche and never left it, I'd be pretty boring, I think. — Zooey Deschanel

I've grown tired of resting on my laurels and have decided to start resting on my failures. — Dana Gould

Also, she had been secretary to the soccer coach, an office pretty much without laurels in our own time, but apparently the post for a young girl to hold in Jersey City during the First World War. — Philip Roth

I kind of feel like I have grown as just like a human being as a human being by being able to adapt and adjust and know that like you can't ever rest on your laurels, you have to sort of wake up; you actually have to be present. — Nicole Beharie

I refuse to sit on my laurels. — Patricia Cornwell

You see, a laurel needs rain to grow. I can't do much about that. But I can keep that rain off a few musician's heads, can't I?" A sly smile wound its way onto his face. "So God will tend the laurels and keep them wet. And I will tend the players and keep them dry. And wiser minds than mine will decide when to bring the two together. — Patrick Rothfuss

Tell me, what kind of woman managed to land the most decorated soldier in England?'
'The kind who cares nothing for medals or laurels.'
Giving him a frankly disbelieving glance, Fenwick said, 'How can that be true? Of course she cares about such things. She is now the wife of an immortal.'
Christopher stared at him blankly. 'Pardon?'
' ... warriors are revered. They are never forgotten. — Lisa Kleypas

You'll get no laurel crown for outrunning a burrow. — Martial

Don't rest on your laurels. There's always going to be someone behind you who's going to be better than you. So you need to get out there and keep working. — Sheila Johnson

I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton. — Albert Einstein

We need to look to our laurels a bit with television in this country. I don't think enough risks are being taken in drama television in the U.K., and I think a lot of programme makers are underestimating the intelligence of the viewing public, basing it all on ratings. — Charles Dance

The one thing that I think separates Microsoft from a lot of other people is we make bold bets. We're persistent about them, but we make them. A lot of people won't make a bold bet. A bold bet doesn't assure you of winning, but if you make no bold bets you can't continue to succeed. Our industry doesn't allow you to rest on your laurels forever. I mean, you can milk any great idea. Any idea that turns out to be truly great can be harvested for tens of years. On the other hand, if you want to continue to be great, you've got to bet on new things, big, bold bets. — Steve Ballmer

It's been the work that has carried me and I never wanted to rest on my laurels or go back and do what I done before. — David Cassidy

I gotta say" - Apollo broke the silence - "these kids did okay." He cleared his throat and began to recite: "Heroes win laurels - "
Um, yes, first class," Hermes interrupted, like he was anxious to avoid Apollo's poetry. — Rick Riordan

I just want to leave you with this thought, that it's just been sort of a dress rehearsal, and we're just getting started. So if any of you start resting on your laurels, I mean just forget it, because ... we are just getting started. — Walt Disney Company

The popular scientific books by our scientists aren't the outcome of hard work, but are written when they are resting on their laurels. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

It's great to talk about how good things are now. But we can't sit on our laurels and expect that our time will sustain itself if we don't do a better job on issues like education ... It's absolutely the case that the low cost of college tuition that I was able to enjoy and the financial aid I was able to receive made my education possible. — Wendy Davis

In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best. — Eric Liddell

I have sometimes dreamt ... that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards
their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble
the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading. — Virginia Woolf

You Can't Rest on Your Laurels. Your Own Body of Work Is Yet to Come. — Barack Obama

If you want to conquer conceit, do not desire praise, laurels, nice garments, respect, favor, but like to be blamed and slandered by people ... — Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov

You must be conquerors through him who hath loved you, if conquerors at all. Our laurels must grow among his olives in Gethsemane. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I look at everything I've done critically - but I think that's the job of an actor. If you ever sit on your laurels or think that you're good - in a way, I don't then think you're pushing yourself. — Nicole Kidman

I don't like to look back, and I'm always worried about the next thing rather than resting on the laurels or the degradations of the last thing. — Steve Martin

Actions speak louder than words. In the days to come the Goddess of Victory will bestow her laurels only on those who prepared to act with daring. — Heinz Guderian

Laurels grow in the Bay of Biscay, I hope a bed of them may be found in the Mediterranean. — Horatio Nelson

It is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin grammar, and one of those tow-head boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates take heed! for here is one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A lot of people like to live on laurels that happened 20 or 30 years ago, but it's nice to get awards. It's nice to be labeled and things like that, but I'm not sure everybody qualifies. — Tim Conway

There's that talent thing where I can score goals, and there's also that want and ambition to keep doing it and doing it and doing it. I've seen a lot of players do it for a year and then they rest on their laurels, but I've been very driven throughout my career. Without being the most talented, I think I've tried to make the most of it. — Frank Lampard

There's a lot of guys that just get comfortable with their positions and rest on their laurels. I had to earn my way. — Paul Walker

I think the fault is more with historicists who have stubbornly failed to develop a good theory of historicity. By simply resting on the feeble laurels of prima facie plausibility ('Jesus existed because everyone said so') and subjective notions of absurdity ('I can't believe Jesus didn't exist!'), the existence of Jesus has largely been taken for granted, even by competent historians who explicitly try to argue for it. — Earl Doherty

I want to give the audience the whole package, and for me, the whole package is to give them something fresh as well. It's not as much fun resting on your laurels. — Al Jarreau