Takes Effort Quotes & Sayings

The elegance of a mathematical theorem is directly proportional to the number of independent ideas one can see in the theorem and inversely proportional to the effort it takes to see them. — George Polya

I give myself the luxury of time in shaping a song. It's very common for me to work three months or more on a single song. Plotting takes time and effort, for there are many false turns. I fill up pages and pages with my mistakes, thereby eliminating them. Eventually a trail is broken through this mountain of mistakes. Sometimes it's as easy as putting eggs in a basket; other times it's like trying to pound a ton of sand into a diamond. — David Massengill

It takes enormous effort to avoid all theories and just see. — Michael Crichton

If you're not all right the way you are it takes a lot of effort to get better. Realize you're all right the way you are,and you'll get better naturally. — Werner Erhard

Growing old is humbling and it takes effort to accomplish this stage of life with dignity. — Kilroy J. Oldster

In order to discover truth it is necessary to coldly dissect and examine all of our prejudices and inherent biases to ensure we receive unbiased answers. This takes effort. It is always easier to simply accept the ideas presented to us than to question the status quo. — Stephen McAndrew

Like sex, poverty and power, suicide may always be with us. But like them again, the actual form is takes is essentially time-specific and culture-bound, not only in the past but in the present too. The people who took their lives, the paths which led them to that end, and the experience of dying in this way were deeply influenced by specific historical circumstances. Only by making a greater effort at historical understanding can this most secret house of death be made to yield up more of its confidences. — David Cannadine

I'm not very good at relationships, Claire. In fact, my track record is abysmal." Claire gently squeezed Annie's shoulder. "It takes a concerted effort to make any relationship work. Your walk with God is no different. It's a lifelong process that won't be perfected until you reach Heaven. And I must warn you, Annie, just because you're a believer now doesn't mean your life will become easier. In fact, it might become much harder. — Mark Romang

Life is so crowded with every day. It takes great effort to step aside and just watch and think. — Dagobert D. Runes

Owing your style sometimes takes effort, and it's okay to expend effort on how you look — Sophia Amoruso

I've always had this idea that if you're going to try something, if you're going to expend that first big block of effort and energy to participate - whether it's riding the Tour de France or applying for a new job or coaching your daughter's soccer team - you might as well go ahead and give whatever else it takes to win, I mean, I'm going to be there no matter what, right? Why not go ahead and get the victory? — Johan Bruyneel

I think the way you can tell if a guy and girl are in a serious relationship is whether or not they have black and white pictures of themselves together. That's the real test. Because it takes effort to get nice black and white photos. If you've gone that far, there's no turning back. — Aaron Karo

It takes time to be a good father. It takes effort - trying, failing, and trying again. — Tim Hansel

Information is key to raising awareness of what our brain withholds from our conscious mind. Unfortunately we are hardwired emotion-driven thinkers. It takes effort and training to exercise introspection and mindfulness. — David Bloor

Software development takes immense intellectual effort. Even the best programmers can rarely sustain that level of effort for more than a few hours a day. Beyond that, they need to rest their brains a bit, which is why they always seem to be surfing the Internet or playing games when you barge in on them. — Joel Spolsky

If you want something bad enough, take the steps needed to make it happen, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes you get lucky and can skip some steps, but most of the time you can't. The secret to achieving any goal is nothing more than putting in the necessary time and effort. — Bill Loguidice

Though recognition's been delayed by its circuitous construction, now the pattern, long concealed, emerges into view. Is it not fine? Is it not simple, and elegant, and severe? How strange, after the long exacting toil of preparation, it takes only the slightest effort and less thought to send this brief, elaborate amusement on its breathless, hurtling race. The merest touch, no more, and everything falls into place. The pieces can't perceive as we the mischief their arrangement tempts. Those stolid law-abiding queues, so pregnant with catastrophe. Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late. — Alan Moore

I'd always heard people say and I'm sure you heard it too, "Change takes time." But, my parents taught me the more important lesson, very silently but with even greater clarity, "Change takes time. But, it also takes people." People who are willing to put in their everything. Change doesn't happen by itself. — Sharad Vivek Sagar

When changes are not converted to new habits, it takes conscious effort to continue performing the changed behavior. Willpower, which drives proper behavior that has not yet become a habit, is like a — Kyle Havill

Words can be like weapons of destruction: It takes so much effort, and the cooperation of so many people, to build something - and so little effort of so few to tear it down. — Deborah Tannen

Happiness does not come automatically. It is not a gift that good fortune bestows upon us and a reversal of fortune takes back. It depends on us alone. One does not become happy overnight, but with patient labor, day after day. Happiness is constructed, and that requires effort and time. In order to become happy, we have to learn how to change ourselves. LUCA AND FRANCESCO CAVALLI-SFORZA — Matthieu Ricard

In the craziness of our world, it takes tremendous effort to find a quiet place. It takes time to quiet your mind and your heart before the Lord. — Francis Chan

Caring, it turns out, is a competitive advantage, and one that takes effort, not money. — Seth Godin

I think to make any relationship work it just takes a tremendous amount of effort and accepting of one another. — Rebecca Romijn

Oh, what a nation of moralists the Americans are! With what fervor do they relish bringing their sexual misconduct to light! A pity that they do not bring their moral outrage to bear on their president's arrogance above the law; a pity that they do not unleash their moral zest on an administration that runs guns to terrorists. But, of course, boudoir morality takes less imagination, and can be indulged in without the effort of keeping up with world affairs - or even bothering to know "the whole story" behind the sexual adventure. — John Irving

It is not expensive to be beautiful. It takes only a little effort to be presentable and beautiful. But it takes some effort. And unfortunately people think of beauty as luxury, beauty as frivolity, ... or extravagance. Beauty is a discipline, beauty is art, is harmony, in the ideological sense and in the theological sense, beauty is God and love made real. And the ultimate reach in this world is beauty. — Imelda Marcos

We have been making constant efforts, all the time, to start dialogue with the SLORC, but you know it takes two. We don't want a monologue. We would like a substantive political dialogue among the SLORC, political leaders including myself, and leaders of ethnic groups-exactly as stipulated in the U.N. General Assembly resolution on Burma. — Aung San Suu Kyi

The mysterious manner in which this growing sense of unity commingles with a sense of utter goodness is worth noting. It arises by no effort of mine; rather does it come to me out of I know not where. Harmony appears gradually and flows through my whole being like music. An infinite tenderness takes possession of me, smoothing away the harsh cynicism which a reiterated experience of human ingratitude and human treachery has driven deeply into my temperament. I feel the fundamental benignity of Nature despite the apparent manifestation of ferocity. Like the sounds of every instrument in an orchestra that is in tune, all things and all people seem to drop into the sweet relationship that subsists within the Great Mother's own heart. — Paul Brunton

Thinking in art and morals and even mathematics is neither the reflection in consciousness of a mechanical order in the brain nor the tracing with the mind's eye of some empirical order in its object, but an endeavour to realize in thought an ideal order which would satisfy an inner demand. The nearer thought comes to its goal, the more it finds itself under constraint by that goal, and dominated in its creative effort by aesthetic or moral or logical relevance. These relations of relevance are not physical or psychological relations. They are normative relations that can enter into the mental current because that current is ... teleological. Their operation marks the presence of a different type of law, which supervenes upon physical and psychological laws when purpose takes control. — Brand Blanshard

Love needs too much help, he said.
hate takes care of itself. — Charles Bukowski

Still, I did love him. He never minded if I wore my pyjamas for a week and didn't brush my hair. That's a good quality to have in a man. Maybe the best a girl could hope for, considering. And, by Jove, he loves that child. Did you know you can fall in love with the way a man loves someone else? Love takes so much effort. You have to get up ever so early in the morning to really love someone properly. — Catherynne M Valente

Once you realize how effortless the highest way of life is, it takes tremendous effort to assume the opposite. — Lester Levenson

Real love takes work. You have to be willing to make the effort. — Noah Weinberg

People do not realize just how much effort it takes to do a half ass job properly. A lot of time is spend in choosing which cheek will do the job best then whether that cheek is available on that day. Odds are 50/50 that half assed will be half of half assed or quarter assed, which doesn't have the same ring to it at all ...
Mediocrity isn't so easy is it? — Neil Leckman

I've been Corporate's Least Favorite Kotova since I was fifteen. And with an extended family that fills one-third of all Aerial Ethereal shows, being the worst or best Kotova takes actual effort. — Krista Ritchie

It takes a lot of effort to be vibrant. — Tom Stoppard

When you've committed yourself to violence it takes an almost inhuman effort to stop short. It's one of those things that once you've started need to be finished, rather like coitus, interrupting that's a sin, even the priests say so. — Mark Lawrence

When we really keep in the forefront of our thoughts that our intention in this life is to recover and be free, then being of service, practicing meditation, and doing what we need to do to get free becomes the only rational decision. This takes discipline, effort, and a deep commitment. It takes a form of rebellion, both inwardly and outwardly, because we not only subvert our own conditioning, we also walk a path that is totally countercultural. The status quo in our world is to be attached to pleasure and to avoid all unpleasant experiences. Our path leads upstream, against the normal human confusions and sufferings. — Noah Levine

Success is not about getting it right the first time but about not giving up even if it takes a lifetime of effort. — Pooja Ruprell

Eating is an agricultural act," Wendell Berry famously wrote, by which he meant that we are not just passive consumers of food but cocreators of the systems that feed us. Depending on how we spend them, our food dollars can either go to support a food industry devoted to quantity and convenience and "value" or they can nourish a food chain organized around values
values like quality and health. Yes, shopping this way takes more money and effort, but as soon as you begin to treat that expenditure not just as shopping but also as a kind of vote
a vote for health in the largest sense
food no longer seems like the smartest place to economize. — Michael Pollan

You can not figure out love without figuring out death, too, but the effort it takes can knock the wind out of you. Love is the first cousin of death, they're acquainted with each other, they go to the same family reunions. — Charles Baxter

finding the time to practice takes a little effort and thought. For many of us, already feeling maxed out in terms of time constraints, being told that we need to set aside more time five days a week to do something else is in itself stressful. As you make your wellness and wholeness a priority, you will find it becomes easier to protect your practice by creating a special place and time in which to work on yourself. — Beryl Bender Birch

Those places I don't understand, just doing bad food. It takes some doing. Making good pasta is so much easier than making bad stuff. It actually takes quite an effort to make poor linguine pomodora. — Anthony Bourdain

It really takes an effort to appear stupider than you are. — Muriel Barbery

You can't save a relationship unless both people are equally invested. It takes a joint effort to make it work. One person trying will never be enough. — Tony Gaskins

We have already discovered the fact that fear is the chief reason for poverty and failure and misery that takes on a thousand different forms. We have already discovered the fact that the man who masters fear may march on to successful achievement in practically any undertaking, despite all efforts to defeat him. — Napoleon Hill

But if the Negro is so distinctly inferior, it is a strange thing to me that it takes such tremendous effort on the part of the white man to make him realize it, and to keep him in the same place into which inferior men naturally fall. — James Weldon Johnson

Owning your style takes some effort, and it's okay to expend effort on how you look. Putting in effort is exactly what you should be doing. You should get dressed for your life. I don't care if the only place you have to go is the post office. Get dressed, #girlboss, and let your freak flag fly. — Sophia Amoruso

Let me explain. Say you have an eating disorder like anorexia - you've probably been hiding the condition for a long time. After months or years, you face your demons, with or without therapy, you admit you're ill and eventually decide you want to recover. But this is only half the battle. Once start to eat again, once you begin to gain weight, it's unbelievably stressful. Having gone from absolute control over every calorie which goes into your mouth, you're now being forced to double, maybe even triple that amount. You're being forced to consume unsafe substances like butter, oil, nuts. Every mouthful takes a colossal effort. In your rigid anorexic mindset, not being underweight equates to being overweight. Not being hungry equates to greed. Giving up an eating disorder is frightening. It is almost impossible to imagine that the process will ever be ok. — Emma Woolf

It takes close attention to see what is happening in front of you. It takes work, pious effort, to see what you are looking at. — Don DeLillo

The average page of a book weighs about 0.035 of an ounce, but getting people to keep turning them takes enormous effort. — Dave Preston

Lobbing hand grenades on the bride of Christ takes zero talent or effort. I also think this really ticks God off. My five-year-old child complains and whines when things aren't the way she wants them, but courageous men and women roll up their sleeves and get busy. I want to be an active participant in putting back together the broken pieces. — Mike Foster

I think 'Heroes of Cosplay' will show a lot of the positive things, like how much effort it takes to make a costume. These people on the show aren't taking shortcuts. As long as that effort gets through to the viewers, we will be inspirational. Then there will be people who watch the show that want to get in and hands-on make outfits. — Yaya Han

The result of all this muscular effort, on both the larger scale and the smaller, is that your body burns calories and consumes oxygen at a rate that is unmatched in almost any other human endeavor. Physiologists, in fact, have calculated that rowing a two-thousand-meter race - the Olympic standard - takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back-to-back. And it exacts that toll in about six minutes. — Daniel James Brown

Success takes so much effort, — T.W. Brown

It takes deliberate and continuous effort to carve out time in our overfull schedules to listen to the voice of God. — Sheila Walsh

The only way you can have it all is by delegating all the running of the home to other people - which I don't ever want to do ... So you do it yourself, and it takes time and energy and effort. And if you give it the time, it's profoundly enjoyable. — Emma Thompson

Relationships take time and energy, and your job kind of sucks that all out of you. It takes an extra effort to stay present in a relationship when you are working so many hours. — America Ferrera

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle. — Helen Keller

Scolding must be very, very fun, otherwise children would be allowed to do it. It is not because children don't have what it takes to scold. You need only three things, really. You need time, to think up scolding things to say. You need effort, to put these scolding things in a good order, so that the scolding can be more and more insulting to the person being scolded. And you need chutzpah, which is a word for the sort of show-offy courage it takes to stand in front of someone and give them a good scolding, particularly if they are exhausted and sore and not in the mood to hear it. — Lemony Snicket

God loves the lowly. When we live humbly, he takes our small efforts and creates great things. — Pope Francis

Forgetting used to be a failing, a waste, a sign of senility. Now it takes effort. It may be as important as remembering. — James Gleick

It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory — Paulo Coelho

I want to show the event at the very moment it takes place ... My body must be anchored to the ground and seek the best point of view, without any visual taboos. But then, at the heart of the event, my effort is to disappear, I introduce a distance that borders on indifference. — Luc Delahaye

Hammer does not think he will make it through this next winter. His breath comes short in his chest, and it takes much effort for him to get up and dressed. My body is still creaky and sound, but with every labor of his breath, I think that my heart will not endure. Enduring were Hammer's gift, not mine, and I will not endure a life in which he does not laugh by my side and touch my hand, wish for the best things for me, and rejoice when I have them. My sturdy, blessed, stoic Hammer - how can life be, without him? — Amy Lane

If there is one thing I can brag about and be proud of in my life, it's my dedication to friendship. If I call you a friend, I mean it. You are now on par with being a family member. Friendships are not made overnight; it takes time, effort, and energy. For me, friendships are tested not in the best of times, but in the worst of times. You don't always get a second chance to be there for someone when they really need you. So when I say I will be there, I mean it. — Leah Remini

You need to understand that love isn't all romance and flowers and great sex, Violet." I raised my eyebrows, but she didn't stop. "Real love takes work and effort and time. Real love is willing to wait while you sort your shit out, and is still there once you get your head on straight. — Brooke Moss

The reward of being able to tell stories every day is worth the effort required to make it happen, no matter how long it takes. — Sean Platt

I'm convinced that the world, more than ever, needs the music only you can make. And if it takes extra courage to keep playing in spite of your loss, many will applaud the effort. And who knows? Others may be inspired to pick up their broken instruments, their broken lives, and begin again. — Steve Goodier

There's no denying that it takes effort to set the intention to see our fundamental connected-ness with others. — Sharon Salzberg

Bad design is the default mode, since it takes the least effort to create. — David Butler

Meaningful work, creative work, thoughtful work, important work - this type of effort takes stretches of uninterrupted time to get into the zone. But in the modern office such long stretches just can't be found. Instead, it's just one interruption after another. — Jason Fried

Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary - the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trimtab.
It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trimtab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.
So I said, call me Trimtab. — R. Buckminster Fuller

Our Heavenly Father loves each one of us and understands that this process of climbing higher takes preparation, time, and commitment. He understands that we will make mistakes at times, that we will stumble, that we will become discouraged and perhaps even wish to give up and say to ourselves it is not worth the struggle. We know it is worth the effort, for the prize, which is eternal life, is "the greatest of all the gifts of God." And to qualify, we must take one step after another and keep going to gain the spiritual heights we aspire to reach. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

It takes great effort to follow the rules of a pull system ... thus a half-hearted introduction of a pull system brings a hundred harms and not a single gain. — Taiichi Ohno

If you want to be in fashion you have to absolutely love what you do, because it's more than a job - it's your life. This is a very intense and hard business. But don't worry, trust life. Anything you want, you are capable of getting, it just takes a combination of effort and grace. — Lori Goldstein

The trouble with babies is that they are made like a safe- no way to see what's inside and no guarantee that the effort will be worth the trouble. spin the numbers, crack the code, but the door won't swing open. Babies are safes on time-delay. It takes years for the door to swing open, and even when it does, the best minds are undecided as to the value of the contents — Jeanette Winterson

Teachers have to believe. You have to care, and that takes a lot of work and effort. Teachers need people to give back once in a while too, if only a little. — Matthew Quick

Hate is infectious, but so is love, the difference between the two is one takes effort and the other one doesn't. — Dave Guerrero

Must recognize that greater knowledge about Islam is not enough to alter people's perceptions of Muslims. Minds are not changed merely through acquiring data or information (if that were the case it would take no effort to convince Americans that Obama is, in fact, a Christian). Rather, it is solely through the slow and steady building of personal relationships that one discovers the fundamental truth that all people everywhere have the same dreams and aspirations, that all people struggle with the same fears and anxieties. Of course, such a process takes time. It may take another generation or so for this era of anti-Muslim frenzy to be looked back upon with the same shame and derision with which the current generation views the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish hysterics of the past. But that day will no doubt come. Perhaps then we will recognize the intimate connections that bind us all together beyond any cultural, ethnic, or religious affiliations. Inshallah. God willing. — Reza Aslan

You can't escape from a prison until you recognize you are in one. People who have chosen to live within the limits of their old beliefs continue to have the same experiences. It takes effort and commitment to break old patterns — Bob Proctor

Stairs to climb are difficult it takes time and effort and going down is easies job... what do I mean with that?

(I think that... once upon a time.... .you had something in your head more than a candy!) — Deyth Banger

It takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they 'speak with the accent of natives' they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds. — Ivan Illich

The ego is our pain, but it is what we know and we resist moving out of it. The effort it takes to grow out of painful patterns often feels more uncomfortable than remaining within them. Personal growth can be so painful because it can make us ashamed and humiliated to face our own darkness. But the goal of personal growth is the journey out of dark emotional patterns which cause us pain to those which cause us peace. — Marianne Williamson

"Extra effort," in whatever form it takes (mental, physical, emotional), cannot be sustained without eventual damage and diminishing returns. There has to be a very acute awareness on your part as to the level of exertion and the toll it's taking on those you lead. — Bill Walsh

Everything good takes a great amount of effort. Like, things went wrong with 'Prozac Nation' so much, and it went through so many rejections and incarnations, but I felt so much that it needed to exist. But if I hadn't been so persistent and insistent, it wouldn't have happened. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

A motion picture, or music, or television, they have to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadcast to a vast audience. Other forms of mass media cost too much to produce a risk reaching only a limited audience. Only one person. But a book ... A book is cheap to print and bind. A book is as private and consensual as sex. A book takes time and effort to consume - something that gives a reader every chance to walk away. Actually, so few people make the effort to read that it's difficult to call books a "mass medium." No one really gives a damn about books. No one has bothered to ban a book in decades. — Chuck Palahniuk

Simple code takes effort to design. It is not the same thing as overly simplistic code. — Anonymous

One of the realities of life is that few things of value ever come easy. A great marriage takes years of hard work - every day. There is never a time when I can say that I no longer need to work on being patient, tender, and conversant. I believe that marriage is forever, which means that you work through your problems and learn how to relate to each other no matter what it takes. Hog Hole marriages require daily effort and sacrifice. So do Hog Hole careers, friendships, children, and churches. It's never easy; few things of value ever are. A Hog Hole life is available to every person, but it takes determination, sacrifice, and work. In a word, discipline. — Bob Merritt

I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times."
Takahashi swings his trombone case from his right shoulder to his left. Then he says, "It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. Recognizing and understanding the shadows is what a healthy intelligence does. And to acquire a healthy intelligence takes a certain amount of time and effort. I don't think you have a particularly dark character. — Haruki Murakami

People choose to read, and it takes effort. It's not one of those hobbies that asks nothing of the person who is doing it. It's more than a hobby. — Gabrielle Zevin

Improving the human condition takes little effort; destroying it takes maximum force. — T.F. Hodge

Some of the biggest bores I've ever known are men who have been highly successful in business, particularly self-made heads of big companies. Before the first olive has settled into the first martini, they pour the stories of their lives into the nearest and sometimes the remotest ears capturable ... These men have indeed paid the price of success. To rise to the top of a big company often takes a totality of effort, concentration and dedication. Others, too, have to pay part of the price. Wife and children are out of mind even when in sight ... — Malcolm Forbes

Remember, what does 'retirement' mean? It doesn't mean that you're a couch potato. Leisure is not the same thing as rest. If you're bicycling five miles a day, that's leisure, but it certainly takes a lot of effort. — Robert Fogel

S come true. The time channeled into such a task is perceived as time subtracted from the total available for our life. Many people consider their jobs as something they have to do, a burden imposed from the outside, an effort that takes life away from the ledger of their existence. So even though the momentary on-the-job experience may be positive, they tend to discount it, because it does not contribute to their own long-range goals. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Helplessness is such a rotten feeling. There's nothing you can do about it. Being helpless is like being paralyzed. It's sickness. The cure calls for a monumental effort to stand up and start walking somewhere, anywhere. But that takes some doing. — Chuck Barris

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort. — Tom Rath

That wasn't easy, was it? Anna, look at me," he says, waiting. "Give yourself credit. It takes a lot of effort to recall a time when we're scared. — Julie Oleszek

I think US/UK genre has become more open to "diverse" writers and writing; there's a genuine interest in reading work from countries outside the US/UK and hearing voices that have been historically shut out, but at the same time, people are quite lazy. That sounds harsh, but I include myself in it - your tastes are shaped by what you've read and watched before, and it takes a little effort to understand stories that use a different voice, that follow different storytelling conventions, that are trying to subvert the dominant paradigm. There's a quite large group of people who are "yay diversity" in theory, but I think the number of people who have then said to themselves, "OK, if I'm committed to this, I need to start reading outside my comfort zone and making an effort" is maybe a little smaller. — Zen Cho

I know I'll keep writing poems. That's the constant. I don't know about novels. They're hard. It takes so much concentrated effort. When I'm writing a novel it's pretty much all I can do. I get bored. It takes months. Movies do the same thing. It's all-encompassing. It feels like I'm going to end up writing poems, short stories and screenplays. — Sherman Alexie