Persistently Quotes & Sayings

Further, the constitution of our consciousness is the ever present and lasting element in all we do or suffer; our individuality is persistently at work, more or less, at every moment of our life: all other influences are temporal, incidental, fleeting, and subject to every kind of chance and change. This is why Aristotle says: It is not wealth but character that lasts.
And just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn upon ourselves; for fortune may always change, but not character. Therefore, subjective blessings - a noble nature, a capable head, a joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well-constituted, perfectly sound physique, in a word, mens sana in corpore sano, are the first and most important elements in happiness; so that we should be more intent on promoting and preserving such qualities than on the possession of external wealth and external honor. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I believe that religious witness should not mobilize public authority to impose a view where a decision is inherently private in nature or where people are deeply divided about whether it is ... Americans are plainly and persistently divided about abortion and the fiat of government cannot settle the issue as a matter of conscience or of conduct. — Edward Kennedy

You may think that you are well, but you will not secure health until you think thoughts that produce health. You may persistently affirm that you are well, but so long as you live in discord, confusion, worry, fear and other wrong states of mind, you will be sick; that is, you will be as you think and not what you think you are. You may state health in your thought, but if you give worry, fear and discord to that thought, your thinking will produce discord. It is not what we state in our thoughts, but what we give to our thoughts that determine results. — Christian D. Larson

Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. — G.I. Gurdjieff

Whoever knocks persistently, ends by entering. — Muhammad Ali

A beetle may or may not be inferior to a man - the matter awaits demonstration; but if he were inferior by ten thousand fathoms, the fact remains that there is probably a beetle view of things of which a man is entirely ignorant. If he wishes to conceive that point of view, he will scarcely reach it by persistently revelling in the fact that he is not a beetle. — G.K. Chesterton

The Master persistently warned against the attempt to encompass Reality in a concept or a name. A scholar in mysticism once asked, "When you speak of BEING, sir, is it eternal, transcendent being you speak of, or transient, contingent being?" The Master closed his eyes in thought. Then he opened them, put on his most disarming expression, and said, "Yes! — Anthony De Mello

I suppose there is no place in the world where snobbery is quite so ever-present or where it is cultivated in such refined and subtle forms as in an English public school. Here at least one cannot say that English 'education' fails to do its job. You forget your Latin and Greek within a few months of leaving school - I studied Greek for eight or ten years, and now, at thirty-three, I cannot even repeat the Greek alphabet - but your snobbishness, unless you persistently root it out like the bindweed it is, sticks by you till your grave. — George Orwell

I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair. — Maya Angelou

If I am always standing at the bottom of the mountain longingly looking up, in all probability it is because I have heeded the pillaging dogma of mediocrity which persistently tells me that the dream is not worth the climb. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Of course, there remains the question of why we should find mind-brain identities so persistently counter-intuitive, if they are true. But this is a simple psychological question, and there are a number of plausible explanations. Indeed this is a topic that is quite extensively discussed outside philosophy, by developmental psychologists and theorists of religion among others, under the heading of 'intuitive dualism'. It is rather shocking that so few of the many philosophers working on 'the explanatory gap' are familiar with this empirical literature. — David Papineau

My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success ... All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonour, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor. — Frederick Douglass

We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he has never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after the Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment- until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. — Mark Twain

Do not become archivists of facts. Try to penetrate to the secret of their occurrence, persistently search for the laws which govern them. — Ivan Pavlov

Will not taste death" means exactly what it says. Our principal confusion with it is that we persistently misinterpret everything he says as being about bodies, since we think we ourselves are bodies, and in our delusion we do not hear that he addresses us as spirit. — Rogier Fentener Van Vlissingen

Across the broken apses and shattered naves of a hundred ruined Byzantine churches, the same smooth, cold, neo-classical faces of the saints and apostles stare down like a gallery of deaf mutes; and through this thundering silence the everyday reality of life in the Byzantine provinces remains persistently difficult to visualise. The sacred and aristocratic nature of Byzantine art means that we have very little idea of what the early Byzantine peasant or shopkeeper looked like; we have even less idea of what he thought, what he longed for, what he loved or what he hated.
Yet through the pages of The Spiritual Meadow one can come closer to the ordinary Byzantine than is possible through virtually any other single source.

Dalrymple, William (2012-06-21). From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (Text Only) (Kindle Location 248). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition. — William Dalrymple

It is impossible to determine precisely how many Victorians were dependent on the drug, but since millions used it on a daily basis, the number must have been considerable. The pallor of many women in the middle and upper classes, their frequent lack of appetite, their tendency to faint and to spend considerable time alone in dark rooms, the ornate patterns of overupholstered and overfurnished rooms, the persistently closed, thick draperies - these are evidence of a national dependency that the restraints of Victorian society discouraged anyone from discussing. — David Morrell

Radical servanthood challenges us, while attempting persistently to overcome poverty, hunger, illness, and any other form of human misery, to reveal the gentle presence of our compassionate God in the midst of our broken world. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

There is something very peculiar about this form of atheism: It tries to constantly remind us of God while maintaining He does not exist! How can you hate something that is not there? Why would you persistently prove to people the non-existence of a being really not there? — Gerard Verschuuren

Our attitude towards evil must be freed from hatred, and has itself need to be enlightened in character ... Satan rejoices when he succeeds in inspiring us with diabolical feelings to himself. It is he who wins when his own methods are used against himself ... A continual denunciation of evil and its agents merely encourages its growth in the world a truth sufficiently revealed in the Gospels, but to which we are persistently blind. — Nikolai Berdyaev

Through the centuries, men of law have been persistently concerned with the resolution of disputes in ways that enable society to achieve its goals with a minimum of force and maximum of reason. — Archibald Cox

To be contemplative we must remove the clutter from our lives, surround ourselves with beauty, and consciously, relentlessly, persistently, give clutter away until the tiny world for which we ourselves are responsible begins to reflect the raw beauty that is God. — Joan D. Chittister

The New Testament persistently presses us upward, toward higher motives for being good. — Philip Yancey

Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what's not working. — Derek Sivers

If you persistently knock, door will definitely be opened. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Rights are not easy to obtain, and once we understand this, we must work attentively and persistently - and never become careless or lazy. — Malalai Joya

True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice. — Francis Of Assisi

Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently. — William Arthur Ward

I hate to point out the obvious, but here's this tiny bird that's been trying to get through a huge bulletproof glass wall. A totally impossible situation. You tell me it's been here every day pecking away persistently for ten minutes. Well, today the glass wall came down. — Kevin Kwan

Gerald Middleton was a man of mildly but persistently depressive temperament. Such men are not at their best at breakfast, nor is the week before Christmas their happiest time. — Angus Wilson

A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles. — Friedrich Nietzsche

To speak eagerly is one thing, to act persistently is another matter entirely. — Eraldo Banovac

Ida was clearly exasperated by the fact that despite the motives that accompanied the lynching statistics published year after year - which Ida included in nearly every article - "law-abiding and fair-minded people should so persistently shut their eyes to the facts." Ida continued, "This record, easily within the reach of every one who wants it," made it "inexcusable" for anyone not to debunk the presumption from the beginning. — Paula J. Giddings

Conclusions which are merely verbal cannot bear fruit, only those do which are based on demonstrated fact. For affirmation and talk are deceptive and treacherous. Wherefore one must hold fast to facts in generalizations also, and occupy oneself with facts persistently, if one is to acquire that ready and infallible habit which we call the art of medicine. — Hippocrates

How could a person possibly become what he is not thinking? Nor is any thought, when persistently entertained, too small to have its effect. The 'divinity that shapes our ends' is indeed ourselves. — Spencer W. Kimball

cross-national studies show that the U.S. poverty rate, which stands persistently above 12 percent, is not only the highest poverty rate of any advanced industrial nation, but is more than twice the average for that group.
Pursuing the American Dream, 9, 276 — Calvin C. Jillson

if He pretends that He is unfriendly and angry with you inasmuch as He does not want to hear you and help you, then say: "Lord God, You have promised this in Your Word. Therefore You will not change Your promise. I have been baptized: I have been absolved." If you persistently urge and press on in this way, He will be conquered and say: "Let it be done unto you as you have petitioned, for you have the promise and the blessing. I have to give in to you. For a constant and persistent seeker and petitioner is the sweetest sacrifice." It — Martin Luther

While you are so busy trying to make yourself humble,
many are persistently and quietly promoting themselves. — Toba Beta

When we fail, we think that is the end of life. Actually, it is the beginning of a greater life when we persistently preserved. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Persistently trying to hoodwink one another, the Emperor, the kings, the princes, and the revolutionaries created an atmosphere of general distrust (like that which poisons the world today); and, in the end, though they had not directly purposed anything of the kind, they involved twenty-five million men in the cataract or a war which lasted for twenty-five years. — Stefan Zweig

(1) When a situation has become too frustrating, a quandary too persistently insolvable; when dealing with the issue is generating chronic discontent, infringing on freedom, and inhibiting growth, it may be time to quit beating one's head against the wall, reach for a big fat stick of metaphoric dynamite, light the fuse, and blast the whole unhappy business nine miles past oblivion. (2) After making an extreme effort, after pulling out all the stops, one is still unable to score Tibetan peach pie, take it as a signal to relax, grin, pick up a fork, and go for a slice of the apple. — Tom Robbins

Habits of everyday life are lost when traveling around the world; the stimulus of seeing occurs persistently in the foreground. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

God always gives riches to diligent people who persistently aim for the goal and who continue to be diligent — Sunday Adelaja

Nothing evades our attention as persistently as that which we take for granted ... the decades roll on without even a suggestion that perhaps the whole matter must be rethought — Marion Brady

Next to being right in this world, the best of all things is to be clearly and definitely wrong, because you will come out somewhere. If you go buzzing about between right and wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are absolutely and thoroughly and persistently wrong, you must, some of these days, have the extreme good fortune of knocking your head against a fact, and that sets you all straight again. — Thomas Huxley

He felt persistently that the girl was beautiful- then of a sudden he understood: it was her distance, not a rare and precious distance of soul but still distance, if only in terrestrial yards. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I have been astonished to see how nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds. — Parker J. Palmer

There was no need to remind Roosevelt who controlled the senate. "I persistently refused to lose my temper," he recalled. "I merely explained good-humoredly that I had made up my mind." Though he steadfastly refused — Doris Kearns Goodwin

There is a big difference between an honest mistake made in a moment of spiritual weakness and a willfull decision to disobey persistently the commandments of God. Those who deliberately choose to violate God's commandments or ignore the standards of the Church, even when promising themselves and others that someday they will be strong enough to repent, are stepping into a dangerously slippery slope upon which many have lost their spiritual footing. — M. Russell Ballard

Arguing face to face can be a powerful thing, and done deftly and persistently, it can reinforce and build respect itself, even across major differences. — Anthony Weston

We must persistently establish God's truth and stand for it to the end — Sunday Adelaja

What you persistently think becomes your reality. — Debasish Mridha

Whatever a man wants badly and persistently enough will determine the man's character. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

All discourses and disciplines proceed from commitments and beliefs that are ultimately religious in nature. No scientific discourse (whether natural science or social science) simply discloses to us the facts of reality to which theology must submit; rather, every discourse is, in some sense, religious. The playing field has been leveled. Theology is most persistently postmodern when it rejects a lingering correlational false humility and instead speaks unapologetically from the the primacy of Christian revelation and the church's confessional language. — James K.A. Smith

What if the only thing standing in the way of your greatness was that you just had to go after everything obsessively, persistently, and as though your life depended on it? — Grant Cardone

The flow of action continually produces consequences which are unintended by actors, and these unintended consequences also may form unacknowledged conditions of actions in a feedback fashion. Human history is created by intentional activities but is not an intended project; it persistently eludes efforts to bring it under conscious direction. — Anthony Giddens

In the beginning..
when ray and day hadn't yet come into existence at all,
there was a kind of radiance that illuminates universe.
That radiance is the light of knowledge and goodness.
That radiance will persistently and consistently shines brightly
even after all the stars and moons in this vast universe died out. — Toba Beta

But the paradox is here: when cultivated people do stay away from a certain portion of the population, when all social advantages are persistently withheld, it may be for years, the result itself is pointed to as a reason and is used as an argument for the continued withholding. — Jane Addams

You also want to fire people who a) create office politics, and b) who are persistently negative. — Sam Altman

Since the earliest times it is as the exploiter that the Jew has been known amongst his fellow men of all races and creeds. Moreover, he has persistently shown himself ungrateful ... The Jews have always formed a rebellious element in every state. — Nesta Helen Webster

INSUFFICIENT EDUCATION. This is a handicap that may be overcome with comparative ease. Experience has proven that the best-educated people are often those who are known as 'self-made' or self-educated. It takes more than a university degree to make one a person of education. Any person who is educated has learned to get whatever they want in life without violating the rights of others. Education consists not so much of knowledge, but of knowledge effectively and persistently applied. People are paid not merely for what they know, but more particularly for what they do with what they know. — Napoleon Hill

Prayer should be done regularly, persistently, resolutely, and tenaciously at least daily, whether we feel like it or not. — Timothy Keller

I believe the role that people like myself have played in the transformation of public opinion has been by persistently presenting a different point of view, a point of view which stresses the importance of private markets, of individual freedom, and the distorting effect of governmental policy. — Milton Friedman

We're in the same position as any scientist. All we have to go on is experiential evidence. And sooner or later we have to trust our own experience, because that's all we really have. Otherwise it's a vicious circle. If I fundamentally distrust my experience, then I must distrust even my capacity to distrust, since that is also an experience. So sooner or later I have no choice but to trust, trust my experience, trust that the universe is not fundamentally and persistently going to lie to me. Of course we can be mistaken, and sometimes experiences are misleading, but on balance we have no choice but to follow them. It's a type of phenomenological imperative. And especially mystical experiences - if anything, as you say, they are more real, not less real, than other experiences. I — Ken Wilber

A UNITED civilization is possible only when human relations are balanced in all transactions which have to do with the distribution of the values of life which all men persistently and constantly seek. — Walter Russell

Nature is entirely indifferent to any reform. She perpetuates a fault as persistently as a virtue. — Charles Dudley Warner

Twentieth century music is like paedophilia. No matter how persuasively and persistently its champions urge their cause, it will never be accepted by the public at large, who will continue to regard it with incomprehension, outrage and repugnance. — Kingsley Amis

Life is that which - pressingly, persistently, unfailingly, imperially - interrupts. — Cynthia Ozick

From the night into his high-walled room there came, persistently, that evanescent and dissolving sound - something the city was tossing up and calling back again, like a child playing with a ball. In Harlem, the Bronx, Gramercy Park, and along the water-fronts, in little parlors or on pebble-strewn, moon-flooded roofs, a thousand lovers were making this sound, crying little fragments of it into the air. All the city was playing with this sound out there in the blue summer dark, throwing it up and calling it back, promising that, in a little while, life would be beautiful as a story, promising happiness - and by that promise giving it. It gave love hope in its own survival. It could do no more. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Snowstorms may yet whiten fields and gardens, high winds may howl about the trees and chimneys, but the little blue heralds persistently proclaim from the orchard and the garden that the spring procession has begun to move. — Neltje Blanchan

Acquiring new skills and adapting to complex, uncertain environments isn't easy, though. It requires persistent attention and near-constant effort to maintain a trajectory of growth. As such, it's easy to grow tired or lose your drive. However, when you stop growing, you start dying. In much the same way that an organization needs to be persistently innovative in order to maintain market share, individuals must make a personal commitment to lifelong personal innovation through skill development, risk-taking, and experimentation in order to avoid stagnation. The seeds of tomorrow's brilliance are planted in the soil of today's activity. — Todd Henry

For success, have a laser-like, purpose-oriented focus, and persistently go toward it. — Debasish Mridha

Sorrow is not a raven perched persistently above a chamber door. Sorrow is a thing with teeth, and while in time it retreats, it comes back at the whisper of it's name. — Dean Koontz

If you consistently and persistently do the things that other successful people do, nothing in the world can stop you from being a big success also. — Brian Tracy

If your spirit is persistently harmless or if it has shown itself to you, in a non-threatening way, then you most definitely have a ghost. The ghost can be frightening, by its very nature. But the ghost will never intentionally frighten you. They will be there for three reasons: 1. They used to live there and are attached to the location 2. They are trying to communicate something to the living or 3. They are protective of somebody who lives in the house and so they are "standing guard" so to speak, over the loved one. — Alexei Maxim Russell

A precept or command is a general teaching of God, obligating every man under pain of mortal sin - namely, in cases in which he has fallen away from the command. Hence, the saints who for a period of their life lived hypocritically sinned mortally for that period. So also the damned, by persistent false living, sin persistently in Hell. — Jan Hus

The gilded spiral
Of longings within.
Our very own cathedral
That points persistently to heaven. — Scott Hastie

I don't know why dogs always go for postmen, I'm sure," continued our guide.
"It's a matter of reasoning," said Poirot. "The dog, he argues from reason. He is intelligent; he makes his deductions according to his point of view. There are people who may enter a house and there are people who may not - that a dog soon learns. Eh bien, who is the person who most persistently tries to gain admission, rattling on the door twice or three times a day - and who is never by any chance admitted? The postman. Clearly, then, an undesirable guest from the point of view of the master of the house. He is always sent about his business, but he persistently returns and tries again. Then a dog's duty is clear, to aid in driving this undesirable man away, and to bite him if possible. A most reasonable proceeding. — Agatha Christie

The Great Zaganza said: You are very fat and stupid and persistently wear a ridiculous hat which you should be ashamed of. — Douglas Adams

Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation. I found nothing. — Leo Tolstoy

Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested. — Oswald Chambers

Boys who grow up seeing themselves everywhere as powerful and central just by virtue of being boys, often white, are critically impaired in many ways. It's a rude shock to many when things don't turn out the way they were told they should. It seems reasonable to suggest media misrepresentations like these contribute, in boys, to a heightened inability to empathize with others, a greater propensity to peg ambition to intrinsic qualities instead of effort and a failure to understand why rules apply or why accountability is a thing. It should mean something to parents that the teenagers with the highest likelihood of sexually assaulting a peer and feel no responsibility for their actions are young white boys from higher-income families. The real boy crisis we should be talking about is entitlement and outdated notions of masculinity, both of which are persistently responsible for leaving boys confused and unprepared for contemporary adulthood. — Soraya Chemaly

Do it! People who succeed don't just sit and think about what they want to do. They take meaningful, purposeful, directional action consistently and persistently. Every step they take puts them toward the outcome they're looking for. — Phil McGraw

Wine is a bride who brings a great dowry to the man who woos her persistently and gracefully. — Evelyn Waugh

Why the histories of states should have so persistently insinuated themselves in the place that might have been occupied by peoples merits reflection. — James C. Scott

If you have a little inteligence, sooner or later the question is bound to arise: What is the point of it all? Why? It is impossible to avoid the question for long. And if you are very intelligent, it is always there, persistently there, hammering on your heart for the answer: Give me the answer! - Why? — Rajneesh

Had the heavens fallen and mixed themselves with the earth, had the people of London risen in rebellion with French ideas of equality,* had the Queen persistently declined to comply with the constitutional advice of her ministers, had a majority in the House of Commons lost its influence in the country, - the utter prostration of the bereft husband could not have been more complete. — Anthony Trollope

it is better to be alone than to be betrayed persistently and dumped . keeping yourself dumped in a room 8x10 is better than hanging out with hypocrites . — Vishal Mishra

It is serving God and others persistently with full heart and soul that turns testimony of truth into unbreakable spiritual strength. — Henry B. Eyring

Work diligently. Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently. And you're bound to be successful. Bound to be successful. — S. N. Goenka

It is right that the influence of the Government should be known in every humble home as the guardian of frugal comfort and content, and a defense against unjust exactions, and the unearned tribute persistently coveted by the selfish and designing. It is right that efficiency and honesty in public service should not be sacrificed to partisan greed; and it is right that the suffrage of our people should be pure and free. — Grover Cleveland

The major lesson Tiggers need to learn is that if they don't control their impulses, their impulses will control them. No matter how much they do, Tiggers are never satisfied because they don't know the feeling of accomplishment that eventually comes when one persistently applies one's will to the attaining of non-immediately-reachable goals. — Benjamin Hoff

Success means leaving everything behind and standing persistently towards our aims with great determination. — Rajasaraswathii

Success, in every case, comes from the alchemy of your health, your mind, your positive energy, and the real world situations you persistently improve for yourself. — James Altucher

Be persistent like a mosquito, at the end you will get your bite — Bangambiki Habyarimana

You have to persistently pursue your love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

How does a culture that prizes equality of opportunity explain, or indeed accommodate, its persistently marginalized people? — Nancy Isenberg

Incidentally her head ached and her shoulders ached and her lungs ached and the ankle-bones of both feet ached quite excruciatingly. But nothing of her felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression. Like a strip of lip-colored lead suspended from her poor little nose by two tugging wire-gray wrinkles her persistently conscientious sickroom smile seemed to be whanging aimlessly against her front teeth. The sensation certainly was very unpleasant. — Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

Persistently worrying yourself over what life throws at you never makes it better but deters you from your set goals in life. — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

Think tanks support so-called experts who will offer an opinion on anything - if the price is right. The result is that the rich and powerful flourish, while everyone else is left further and further behind. The cumulative impact of decades of these decisions has been to hollow out America's middle class and to leave us, as a nation, weakened. The game is rigged. It is deliberately, persistently, and aggressively rigged to help the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful. — Elizabeth Warren