Sheer Determination Quotes & Sayings

If people ask me for the ingredients of success, I say one is talent, two is stubbornness or determination, and third is sheer luck. You have to have two out of the three. Any two will probably do. — Fred Saberhagen

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything
God and our friends and ourselves included
as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred. — C.S. Lewis

The vision, determination, stamina, hope, relentlessness, and sheer work that are involved in staying afloat, much less succeeding, are the same whether you are running a window on 47th Street or Miramax Films or Microsoft. — Bob Weinstein

[L]asting love is something a person has to decide to experience. Lifelong monogamous devotion is just not natural - not for women even, and emphatically not for men. It requires what, for lack of a better term, we can call an act of will ... This isn't to say that a young man can't hope to be seized by love ... But whether the sheer fury of a man's feelings accurately gauges their likely endurance is another question. The ardor will surely fade, sooner or later, and the marriage will then live or die on respect, practical compatibility, simple affection, and (these days, especially) determination. With the help of these things, something worthy of the label 'love' can last until death. But it will be a different kind of love from the kind that began the marriage. Will it be a richer love, a deeper love, a more spiritual love? Opinions vary. But it's certainly a more impressive love. — Robert Wright

Any writer who waits for inspiration to strike will never finish a book. Inspiration is all very well but it will never replace sheer dogged determination. — Barbara Michaels

He read disappointment at his response and wondered if she realized that she expected a certain amount of effusive sympathy from the people she told. Rejecting that sympathy made her feel strong, compensating for what she perceived as her weakness. He suspected that the disease was the first time she hadn't been able to make everything come out all right through the sheer determination that it would be. — Tanya Huff

I moved to assist, but never got the chance. there was some pretty violent banging for a minute, and then a tearing sound. Finally the stall door flew open, and Ray's shirtless body emerged and started bitch-slapping everything in sight.
His aim was off, probably due to the difficulty of having his eyes on the other side of the room, but he made up for it with sheer determination. — Karen Chance

Remember: we all get what we tolerate. So stop tolerating excuses within yourself, limiting beliefs of the past, or half-assed or fearful states. Use your body as a tool to snap yourself into a place of sheer will, determination, and commitment. Face your challenges head on with the core belief that problems are just speed bumps on the road to your dreams. And from that place, when you take massive action - with an effective and proven strategy - you will rewrite your history. — Anthony Robbins

You can still achieve certain things through effort, struggle, determination, and sheer hard work or cunning. But there is no joy in such endeavor, and it invariably ends in some form of suffering. — Eckhart Tolle

Going against the current requires sheer determination. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Perhaps the most important attitude for cultivating good fortune is a strong sense of perseverance. Many of the people in this book faced considerable constraints in finding the Element and managed to do it through sheer, dogged determination. None more so than Brad Zdanivsky. — Ken Robinson

He was now beginning to wonder whether the jigsaw was the correct metaphor for relationships between me and women after all. It didn't take account of the sheer stubbornness of human beings, their determination to affix themselves to another even if they didn't fit. They didn't care about jutting off at weird angles, and they didn't care about phone booths and Mary, Queen of Scots. They were motivated not by seamless and sensible matching, but by eyes, mouths, smiles, minds, breasts and chests and bottoms, wit, kindness, charm, romantic history and all sorts of other things that made straight edges impossible to achieve. — Nick Hornby

So many actors have sheer guts, will, and determination; they just need some preparation. — John Ratzenberger

I went to extreme measures to achieve my goals, from strapping heavy sandbags on my ankles, hopping on one leg, up and down four flights of stairs at 5 am to practice my turns in front of the candle light when others are asleep. I felt like that I had climbed many tall mountains and made so many impossible dreams come true through sheer determination, perseverance, passion, self conviction and belief. — Li Cunxin

In American terms, the accomplishment of Genghis Khan might be understood if the United States, instead of being created by a group of educated merchants or wealthy planters, had been founded by one of its illiterate slaves, who, by sheer force of personality, charisma, and determination, liberated America from foreign rule, united the people, created an alphabet, wrote the constitution, established universal religious freedom, invented a new system of warfare, marched an army from Canada to Brazil, and opened roads of commerce in a free-trade zone that stretched across the continents. — Jack Weatherford

Through sheer volume of passing days you will travel a great distance in your lifetime. Imagine where you might stand if your footsteps steered toward a single goal. — Richelle E. Goodrich

She is not the child that mirrors me, and yet when you put us side by side, there are definite similarities. It's not in the shape of the mouth but the set of it, the sheer determination that silvers our eyes. — Jodi Picoult

In my stubborn youth, I believed that I could stand alone, that I was strong enough to conquer my enemies with sword and with principles. Arrogance convinced me that by sheer determination, I could conquer helplessness itself. Stubborn and foolish youth, I
must admit, for when I look back on those years now, I see quite clearly that rarely did I stand alone and rarely did I have to stand alone. Always there were friends, true and dear, lending me support even when I believed I did not want it, and even when I did
not realize they were doing it. — R.A. Salvatore

Prejudice and bigotry are brought down ... by the sheer force of determination of individuals to succeed and the refusal of a human being to let prejudice define the parameters of the possible. — Condoleezza Rice