The Greatest Achievement Quotes & Sayings

There is no tragedy more woeful than the victory of hate, nor any attainment so hopelessly barren as the sterility of that achievement; for hate is finality, and finality is the greatest evil which can happen in a world of movement. — James Stephens

People who achieve the greatest success are the people who have the most fun getting there. — John Patrick Hickey

It is this conception of the unity of the human career which is perhaps the greatest achievement of historical study, since it gained a place analogous to that of natural science. — James Henry Breasted

In Jung's terms-that we noted previously-the work is the artist's own transference projection, and he knows that consciously and critically. Whatever he does he is stuck with himself, can't get securely outside and beyond himself. He is also stuck with the work of art itself. Like any material achievement it is visible, earthly, impermanent. No matter how great it is, it still pales in some ways next to the transcending majesty of nature; and so it is ambiguous, hardly a solid immortality symbol. In his greatest genius man is still mocked. No matter that historically art and psychosis have had such an intimate relationship, that the road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there. The artist and the madman are trapped by their own fabrications; they wallow in their own anality, in their protest that they really are something special in creation. — Ernest Becker

The greatest power in the world is choice. — John Patrick Hickey

I quite like the idea of family. That's probably the greatest achievement in the world. I've got a lot to achieve workwise - I'd love to direct - but family would be good. — Matt Smith

To know the will of God is the greatest knowledge! To do the will of God is the greatest achievement. — George W Truett

The greatest gift of education, Korya, is the years of shelter provided when learning. Do not think to reduce that learning to facts and the utterances of presumed sages. Much of what one learns in that time is in the sphere of concord, the ways of society, the proprieties of behaviour and thought. Haut would tell you that this is another hard-won achievement of civilization: the time and safe environment in which to learn how to live. When this is destroyed, undermined or discounted, then that civilization is in trouble. — Steven Erikson

Happiness is a man's greatest achievement; it is the response of his total personality to a productive orientation toward himself and the world outside. — Erich Fromm

The body of a young woman is God's greatest achievement ... Of course, He could have built it to last longer but you can't have everything. — Neil Simon

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing. — John Berryman

The greatest investment one can ever make is the investment into humanity, for an achievement based on positive influence into people's life can stand the test of time, survive through the mortality of men and resound endlessly through posterity — Uzoma Ezeson

The Baseball Hall of Fame is something every player dreams about, but being a member of God's Hall of Fame is the greatest achievement of all. God offers each of us the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. When we accept God's gift of salvation, our name is written in the Book of Life, guaranteeing us a place in heaven forever. I made that decision during spring training in 1973, asking Jesus to come into my heart as Lord and Savior. — Gary Carter

By the time I rose and started walking again, I didn't begrudge my mother a thing. The truth was, in spite of all that, she'd been a spectacular mom. I knew it as I was growing up. I knew it in the days that she was dying. I knew it now. And I knew that was something. That it was a lot. I had plenty of friends who had moms who - no matter how long they lived - would never give them the all-encompassing love that my mother had given me. My mother considered that love her greatest achievement. — Cheryl Strayed

The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen? — C.S. Lewis

Simplicity is an intellectual achievement, one of the greatest. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The greatest barrier to achievement and success is not lack of talent or ability but rather the feeling that achievement and success, above a certain level, are outside our self-concept-our image of who we are and what is appropriate to us. — Nathaniel Branden

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time only a dream. Just as the oak sleeps in the acorn, and the bird waits in the egg, so dreams are the seedlings of realities. — Jeff Wheeler

It is commonly asserted and accepted that Paradise Lost is among the two or three greatest English poems; it may justly be taken as the type of supreme poetic achievement in our literature. — John Drinkwater

The American Dream is one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement ... It thrives today in an age when its core components of freedom and opportunity are open to more Americans than ever before. It holds a real, identifiable place in the American heart and mind, and it informs the aspirations of everyone from farmers to software developers, from detectives to bankers, from soldiers to social workers ... It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions. — Dan Rather

The greatest achievement to any human being is to love God, yourself, and others. — Janet Jackson

Cut off entanglements.
Get rid of anger and hatred.
Do not be afraid of hard work.
Tolerate ignominy and endure dishonor.
Forgive people and defer to others.
Take possessions lightly; take life seriously.
View others and self as the same.
Do whatever you can to be helpful.

Practice developing virtue is the greatest priority; when achievement is great and practice profound, it moves heaven and earth.
Ridiculous are the foolish ones who only profit themselves; with no achievement and little action, they dream of becoming immortals. — Liu Yiming

My father - I once asked him what was his greatest achievement. He said his greatest achievement was that he fought in five wars in the infantry, always on the front line, and never hurt anybody. — Etgar Keret

The man who works 52 weeks in the year does not do his best in any one week of the year, Daniel Guggenheim, onetime head of the greatest smelting and mining family in America, impressed upon me. Real recreation quickens aspiration. The true purpose of recreation is not merely to amuse, not merely to afford pleasure, not merely to kill time, but to increase our fitness, enhance our usefulness, spur achievement. — B.C. Forbes

The single greatest effect on student achievement is not race, it is not poverty - it is the effectiveness of the teacher. — Harry Wong

The greatest moments in life are not concerned with selfish achievements, but rather with the things we do for others — Walt Disney

God's greatest gift to mankind is our intellect. Even for those of you who are not of the faithful, the sheer logic alone cannot be denied. Education lifts a people to greater ability and achievement. — Aleksandra Layland

What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind. America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who -- with their hands, their intelligence and their heart -- built the greatest nation in the world: 'Come, and everything will be given to you.' She said: 'Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent. — Nicolas Sarkozy

The Transformation of the World is lavishly reinforced with critical apparatus (that, too, must have been a labor of Hercules to translate
I honestly never expected to see this book in English), but by far its greatest attraction is the intelligence and more important the wisdom of its author. It's a towering achievement no serious reader should miss. — Steve Donoghue

The greatest achievement is self discovery. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Helen Keller became deaf, dumb, and blind shortly after birth. Despite her greatest misfortune, she has written her name indelibly in the pages of the history of the great. Her entire life has served as evidence that no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality. — Napoleon Hill

Having children is my greatest achievement. It was my saviour. It switched my focus from the outside to the inside. My children are gifts, they remind me of what's important. — Elle Macpherson

The Waves is an extraordinary achievement ... It is trembling on the edge. A little less - and it would lose its poetry. A little more - and it would be over into the abyss, and be dull and arty. It is her greatest book. — E. M. Forster

The sight of an achievement is the greatest gift a human being could offer others. - AYN RAND — Robin S. Sharma

The scale and grandeur of the Russian effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history. — Douglas MacArthur

Obama has already demonstrated an extraordinary ability to change the limits of what one can say publicly. His greatest achievement up to now is that, in his refined non-provocative way, he has introduced into public speech topics which had hitherto been de facto unsayable: the continuing importance of race in politics, the positive role of atheists in public life, the necessity to talk with "enemies" like Iran or Hamas, and so on. This is just what US politics needs today more than anything, if it is to break out of its gridlock: new words which will change the way we think and act. — Slavoj Zizek

D-Day represents the greatest achievement of the american people and system in the 20th century. It was the pivot point of the 20th century. It was the day on which the decision was made as to who was going to rule in this world in the second half of the 20th century. Is it going to be Nazism, is it going to be communism, or are the democracies going to prevail? — Stephen Ambrose

Humanity's greatest achievement will come when the happiness of some will no longer be the sadness of others. — Mario Stinger

Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety. — Howard Barker

Success-minded people know that the greatest enemy to today's success is yesterday's success. — John Patrick Hickey

It's funny. When we were alive we spent much of our time staring up at the cosmos and wondering what was out there. We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perhaps man's greatest achievement. But it was while we were there, gathering rocks from the moon's desolate landscape, that we looked up and caught a glimpse of just how incredible our own planet was. Its singular astonishing beauty. We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry. — Jon Stewart

It is the greatest achievement of a teacher to enable his students to surpass him. — John G. Kemeny

the ability to attend to a task and stick to long-term goals is the greatest predictor of success, greater than academic achievement, extracurricular involvement, test scores, and IQ. She calls this grit, and first discovered its power in the classroom, while teaching seventh-grade math. She left teaching to pursue research on her hunch, and her findings have changed the way educators perceive student potential. Gritty students succeed, and failure strengthens grit like no other crucible. — Jessica Lahey

I tend to worry about each "emergency" or unforeseen complication on all my projects. But there are so many! All of life is unforeseen! So I am learning that is the cycle of life - everything is cyclical and temporary and to get ok with that someday could be my greatest achievement. — Kristin Bauer Van Straten

Well, perhaps the greatest achievement, and we didn't know it at the time, was we held an Earth Day in 1970, and out of that Earth Day a lot of students got involved in saving the environment, or trying to. — Pete McCloskey

Einstein's gravitational theory, which is said to be the greatest single achievement of theoretical physics, resulted in beautiful relations connecting gravitational phenomena with the geometry of space; this was an exciting idea. — Richard P. Feynman

Even the greatest of painters cannot produce, however strenuously he exerts himself in pursuit of variety, more than 12 or 13 individual masterpieces. So it is natural that mankind should marvel at God's astonishing and singlehanded achievement in the production of people. — Soseki Natsume

Choice is the greatest power in the universe; and it is all yours. — John Patrick Hickey

Reading is one of the greatest gifts given to humankind. — John Patrick Hickey

The greatest human achievement is love. — Leo Tolstoy

The human mind is happiest when it is most active in performing the functions which it was intended to perform. One of man's greatest passions is that of achievement, the passion for doing things, the ambition to accomplish. This is one of the greatest satisfactions of life, and satisfaction is the chief ingredient in happiness. — Orison Swett Marden

The greatest achievement is to outperform yourself. — Denis Waitley

It is a sore thing to have laboured along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered; and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none.
But though this is one difficulty of the subject, it is not the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry for speaking like a fool. The greatest difficulty with most subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to remember this is an apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued in favour of diligence; only there is something to be said against it, and that is what, on the present occasion, I have to say. — Robert Louis Stevenson

The greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once; for all these successive failures induce a skill which is so much additional power working into the final achievement ... The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys ... Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

In some ways this was Goethe's greatest achievement: the search for the serial relationships in nature, emphasizing border experiences, the junctures where "the real joints of nature" are located, is most likely to reveal the process of change, development, organizing principles. This is also why it needed individuals who were both poet and scientist, who could combine "imagination, observation and thought in the act of language. — Peter Watson

It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity. — Pierre-Simon Laplace

Hoyle's enduring insights into stars, nucleosynthesis, and the large-scale universe rank among the greatest achievements of 20th-century astrophysics. Moreover, his theories were unfailingly stimulating, even when they proved transient. — Fred Hoyle

An Olympic medal is the greatest achievement and honor that can be received by an athlete. I would swap any World Title to have won gold at the Olympics. — Jeff Fenech

Tell me this," I said. "My world. It's not like the one I read about in the oldest books. When they talk about magic, about ghosts, it's as if they are fairy-tales to frighten children. And yet I have seen the dead walk, seen a boy bring fire with just a thought."
Fexler frowned as if considering how to explain. "Think of reality as a ship whose course is set, whose wheel is locked in place by universal constants. Our greatest achievement, and downfall, was to turn that wheel, just a fraction. The role of the observer was always important - we discovered that. If a tree falls in the wood and no one hears it, then it is both standing and not standing. The cat is both alive and dead."
"Who mentioned a fecking cat? — Mark Lawrence

Dhoni is one of the greatest captain I have ever seen. Dhoni's record is praiseworthy. Twenty-two Test wins is not a small achievement. And the success against Australia has come against the backdrop of the not-so-good times he went through in the last two years — Sourav Ganguly

The Titanic woke them up. Never again would they be quite so sure of themselves. In technology especially, the disaster was a terrible blow. Here was the "unsinkable ship" -- perhaps man's greatest engineering achievement -- going down the first time it sailed.

But it went beyond that. If this supreme achievement was so terribly fragile, what about everything else? If wealth mean so little on this cold April night, did it mean so much the rest of the year? — Walter Lord

We have undoubtedly achieved Pakistan, and that too without bloody war, practically peacefully, by moral and intellectual force, and with the power of the pen, which is no less mighty than that of the sword and so our righteous cause has triumphed. Are we now going to besmear and tarnish this greatest achievement for which there is no parallel in the history of the world? Pakistan is now a fait accompli and it can never be undone, besides, it was the only just, honourable, and practical solution of the most complex constitutional problem of this great subcontinent. Let us now plan to build and reconstruct and regenerate our great nation ... — Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Many people think of me as just a riff guitarist, but I think of myself in broader terms. As a musician I think my greatest achievement has been to create unexpected melodies and harmonies within a rock and roll framework. And as a producer I would like to be remembered as someone who was able to sustain a band of unquestionable individual talent, and push it to the forefront during its working career. I think I really captured the best of our output, growth, change and maturity on tape - the multifaceted gem that is Led Zeppelin. — Jimmy Page

The greatest achievement of humanity is the human spirit. — Kamal Ravikant

The greatest human achievements have never been for profit. — H.P. Lovecraft

The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit. — Michael Foley

Modern man is full of platitudes about living life to its fullest, with catchy keychain phrases and little plaques for kitchen walls. But if you've never retreated to the solitude of a dark room and listened to Beethoven's Ninth from start to finish, you know nothing. For music is a transcendental exploration of human emotion and experience, the very fabric of life in its purest form. And the Ninth our greatest musical achievement. — Tiffany Madison

The greatest tragedy in life is not to die, it is to live as if dead, to let the life within us wither. Toward what goal or achievement are we striving in life? This is the important question to ask ourselves. — Daisaku Ikeda

The pursuit of science, the study of the great works, the value of free inquiry, in short, the very idea of living the life of the mind - yes, these formative and abiding principles of higher education in America had their first and firmest advocate, and their greatest embodiment, in a tall, fair-headed, friendly man who watched this university take form from the mountainside where he lived, the university whose founding he called a crowning achievement to along and well-spent life. — Ronald Reagan

The first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man's Final End? — Aldous Huxley

To have my name said like, "Common and John Legend, Golden Globe nominees," is one of the greatest achievements I've ever had as an artist, as a person. — Common

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of "emergency". It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And "emergency" became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains. — Herbert Hoover

the quality of classroom practice that a child encounters has unmatched potential with respect to influencing student learning and achievement. What teachers are doing in classes with students on a daily basis has the greatest potential to influence the academic outcome for students, — Steven Katz

To be accepted by others is a small achievement.
To accept yourself is a great achievement.
To be accepted by God is the greatest achievement. — Matshona Dhliwayo

The greatest achievement of the civil-rights movement is that it has restored the dignity of indignation. — Fredric Wertham

All the best artists have shown that the greatest achievement in the production of fine color is the concealment of pigments, and not the parade of them; and we may say the same of execution. — Asher Brown Durand

The streets would have chewed me up and spit me out and I knew that, but I found my own ways and different knacks for getting in trouble and being reckless with my life. And I've overcome a lot of personal demons and to be alive is really my greatest achievement. — Michael K. Williams

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement. — Augustine Of Hippo

The greatest works are done by the ones. The hundreds do not often do much-the companies never; it is the units-the single individuals, that are the power and the might. Individual effort is, after all, the grand thing. — Charles Spurgeon

The calculus was the first achievement of modern mathematics and it is difficult to overestimate its importance. I think it defines more unequivocally than anything else the inception of modern mathematics; and the system of mathematical analysis, which is its logical development, still constitutes the greatest technical advance in exact thinking. — John Von Neumann

I still think 'The Lord of the Rings' is the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime. Like so many other people, I couldn't wait for the second and then the third book. Nothing like it had ever been written. — Christopher Lee

It's the greatest achievement I've ever witnessed in all my years of being a coach and a television personality. I really, absolutely have been blown away. — Dick Vitale

The greatest achievement is selflessness.The greatest worth is self-mastery.The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.The greatest precept is continual awareness.The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.The greatest generosity is non-attachment.The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.The greatest patience is humility.The greatest effort is not concerned with results.The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances. — Atisa

It does not matter where one comes from, one can achieve even the greatest of things in life. — Ndiritu Wahome

Living for God's glory is the greatest achievement we can accomplish with our lives. — Rick Warren

Being a father is the greatest achievement and the most important thing about me. I have two great kids, no question. — Ryan Phillippe

The lawyers' contribution to the civilizing of humanity is evidenced in the capacity of lawyers to argue furiously in the courtroom, then sit down as friends over a drink or dinner. This habit is often interpreted by the layman as a mark of their ultimate corruption. In my opinion, it is their greatest moral achievement: It is a characteristic of humane tolerance that is most desperately needed at the present time. — John Silber

Mark this on your wall and remember it always: The greatest single most powerful enemy to success is success itself. — John Patrick Hickey

You get that air of satisfaction from achievement. It makes you feel good. We are only here for a very short time, and so you're crazy if you don't go out and try to milk it to the greatest extent you can. — Gerry Harvey

One of the greatest films ever made by a director who, almost forty years after his death, is still an intimidating and disturbing figure in the history of cinema. Visconti's films stand outside the borders of the medium, by their ambition, by their scope, uniting past and present, individuals and history, both deeply human and transcendent. The Leopard, his most translucent, towering achievement, embodies everything the best filmmaking can be, grand, profound, entertaining, physical and metaphysical, sharp as a blade and melodramatic. It stays with you, forever. — Olivier Assayas

In endeavor itself there is a certain dynamic entertainment, affording an illusion of useful purpose. With achievement the illusion is dispelled. Man's greatest accomplishment is to produce change. The only good in life is study, because study is an endeavor that never reaches fulfillment. It busies a man to the end of his days, and it aims at the only true reality in all this world of shams and deceits. — Rafael Sabatini

To be able to live each day with honor, respect and dignity is the greatest achievement of all. — Roopleen

Will you be remembered, how would you be remembered, why wouldn't you fight for the greatest achievement ever? — Ray Lewis

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources. — Luc De Clapiers

The solution of the difficulties which formerly surrounded the mathematical infinite is probably the greatest achievement of which our age has to boast. — Bertrand Russell

My brother cleared his throat. "I wish she knew that I think she is the most hilarious person on Earth. And that whenever she's not home, I feel like I'm missing my partner in crime."
My throat tightened. Do not cry. Do not cry.
"I wish she knew that she's really Mom's favorite
"
I shook my head here.
"
the princess she always wanted. That Mom used to dress her up like a little doll and parade her around like Mara was her greatest achievement. I wish Mara knew that I never minded, because she's my favorite too. — Michelle Hodkin

The greatest weapon you have, and the one that will see you through anything, is a settled determination that you will achieve your dream. — John Patrick Hickey

Helping someone come to a saving knowledge of Christ is the greatest achievement possible. — Charles Stanley

The greatest achievement is self awareness. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Why cry about missed opportunities when you have the ability to smile at opportunities lived? The past has created who you are NOW, where we learn and grow from the past, never resting upon previous achievements or allowing past failure to paralyze us in our current endeavor. All that was has created us to be the best we currently are for our greatest hour is about to arise! — Greg Plitt