Trying To Succeed Quotes & Sayings

If you choose not to act, you have little chance of success. What's more, when you choose to act, you're able to succeed more frequently than you think. How often in life do we avoid doing something because we think we'll fail? Is failure really worse than doing nothing? And how often might we actually have triumphed if we had just decided to give it a try? — Katty Kay

Parisians had no doubt that, should the Huguenots succeed in seizing power in France, as it was obvious they were trying to do, the Catholic population would be either forced to convert or suffer annihilation. But — Nancy Goldstone

To do that Cinnamon had to fill in those blank spots in the past that he could not reach with his own hands. By using those hands to make a story, he was trying to supply the missing links. From the stories he had heard repeatedly from his mother, he derived further stories in attempt to recreate the enigmatic figure of his grandfather in a new setting. He inherited from his mother's stories the fundamental style he used, unaltered, his own stories: namely, the assumption that fact may not be truth, and truth may not be factual. The question of which parts of story were factual and which parts were not was probably not a very important one for Cinnamon. The important question for Cinnamon was not what his grandfather did but what his grandfather might have done. He learned the answers to this question as soon as succeed in telling the story. — Haruki Murakami

What are the purposes of examinations anyhow? Are they to increase our educational attainment? Or are they instruments used to bring suffering and humiliation and deep hurt to a person who is trying so hard to succeed? — Virginia Mae Axline

The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying. — Tom Hopkins

Your trying to take them away from me, and I can't let you do that.I'm not ready to let go."
"Exactly what am I taking away?"
"My family."
"Brenna ... "
She wouldn't let him continue. "You are trying to take them away, aren't you? And if you succeed, what will I have left?"
"Me. — Julie Garwood

There is only one form of political strategy in which I have any confidence, and that is to try to do the right thing and sometimes be able to succeed. — Calvin Coolidge

We should try to succeed by merit, not by favor. He who does well will always have patrons enough.
[Lat., Virtute ambire oportet, non favitoribus.
Sat habet favitorum semper, qui recte facit.] — Plautus

Don't ever let rejections or failures put you down and keep you from trying. Believe in yourself, have an unwavering desire to excel, put in your best your efforts, persevere and you will blaze your trail. — Roopleen

I Have Learned Why People Work So Hard To Succeed: It Is Because They Envy The Things Their Neighbors Have. But It Is Useless. It Is Like Chasing The Wind ... It Is Better To Have Only A Little, With Peace Of Mind, Than Be Busy All The Time With Both Hands, Trying To Catch The Wind — Anonymous

Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we're not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail and sometimes even when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort more exciting, productive, enjoyable, and powerful. Personally, I think we should start right now. — Martha Beck

I didn't know you were a techie, Mulder.' said Scully ...
'I used to fool around with ham radios when I was a kid,' Mulder said, not looking up from his work.
'Let me guess why,' said Scully. 'Ever succeed in making contact with a spaceship?' ...
'No,' said Mulder. 'But it wasn't from lack of trying. — Les Martin

I wanted my spring awakening, even if it was coming a season late.
I wanted summer lovin' that would happen so fast.
I wanted to succeed at the business of love without really trying. — David Levithan

One set of circumstances does not complete you. Maybe nothing ever does. So you work on your life and you work on your 'work' and you try to live every single day like it's your last. And you try to be better, to yourself and to others. I don't always succeed. But I try and it's my goal. — Madonna Ciccone

As a privileged survivor of the First World War, I hope I may be allowed to interject here a deeply felt tribute to those who were not fortunate enough to succeed, but who shared the signal honor of trying to the last to salvage peace. — Rene Cassin

One never fails until they fail at trying to succeed. — Amit Abraham

To live as God's child is to know that you are loved by your Maker not because you try to please him and succeed, or fail to please him and apologize, but because he wants to be your Father. Nothing more. — Max Lucado

Doing something that you love regardless when it's a blockbuster movie or you're writing a pop song or trying shamelessly to succeed in something is not selling out. I think that's actually fine, and I would encourage that all the time. — Adam Levine

I don't believe people let things slide away. It's the nature of the universe that everything dissolves into oblivion and by every route possible, but human beings invest a lot of cleverness trying to cling to past events, real or imagined. And because we can't succeed, we get angry and frustrated and feel guilty. Except the Buddhists. — Robert Reed

I have advice for new writers, first of all, at any time in the history of publishing in my experience, there will be endless number people telling you that you can't do what you are trying to do. You won't succeed, there's something else you should be doing. — Dean Koontz

I don't play tennis to prove a point to anyone. I play for my country and myself. It's not changing what people say or think. It's about what I can do. If I feel I have the ability to achieve something and haven't used my potential to that end, I'll keep trying till I succeed. — Sania Mirza

A person who is of fixed mind in a small matter can be so even in a big matter. If he is asked to make an ellipsoid of clay and concentrate on it, he would do so. In trying to concentrate on any object, one is likely to be distracted by all manner of troublesome thoughts. A person to whom this happens may be described as one whose intellect is not fixed on one aim. One who would succeed in the yoga of works must be of a fixed mind in small matters as well as big. — Mahatma Gandhi

Now we cannot ... discover our failure to keep God's law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going tobring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, You must do this. I can't. — C.S. Lewis

There are two sure ways to fail: never get started and quit before you succeed. Many companies promote the language of risk-taking and innovation but are so concerned with short term profit goals that their culture discourages innovation (trying new things) and abandons promising projects too soon. It shouldn't require exceptional moral courage to try new things and stick with them. — Michael Josephson

Strive to be the very best you can be. Run the race against yourself and not the guy in the other lane. The reason I say that is, as long as you give it 110% you are going to succeed. But as long as you're trying to beat the guy over there, you are worried about him; you're not worrying about how you've got to perform. — Herschel Walker

Admittedly, there's a certain coarseness about [businessmen]; for there's no point in even trying to be [one] unless your love for money is so absolute that you're ready to accompany it on the walk to a double suicide. For money, believe you me, is a hard mistress, and none of her lovers are let off lightly. As a matter of fact, I've just been visiting a businessman and, according to him, the only way to succeed is to practice the "triangled" technique: try to escape your obligations, annihilate your kindly feelings, and geld yourself of the sense of shame. — Soseki Natsume

Putting 100% effort into "trying" will always make you successful. With that in mind it's important to remember that the effort part is never easy. — Lindsey Rietzsch

Try to bring me down, but you will never succeed because I'm always moving upward. Maybe not before, but now ... I am. — Aaron Carter

How to succeed in business without really trying (title of book) — Shepherd Mead

Man wasn't made to share the universe with gods. Their ways are not meant for the humble likes of us. But we've decoded some of their secrets regardless. Like worms, we've grabbed on to the talons of eagles and learnt some small truths and means of flight. But we can never really fly. We try, and succeed to a certain extent, but the fall is always - will always be - there. To be a druid is to embrace death, dance with it a while and finally fall prey to it. That is why we'll never rule this world. We have the power to bend all men to our whim, but are forever pushing ourselves further, trying to fly higher ... and falling. — Darren Shan

Confidence allows you to progress in something you're attempting to accomplish, whether it's playing basketball or baseball or whether it's trying to succeed in business. — Michael Jordan

Trying to control the world?
I see you won't succeed.

The world is a spiritual vessel
And cannot be controlled.

Those who control, fail.
Those who grasp, lose.

Some go forth, some are led,
Some weep, some blow flutes
Some become strong, some superfluous,
Some oppress, some destroyed.

Therefore the Sage,
Casts off extremes,
Casts off excess,
Casts off extravagance. — Lao-Tzu

The act of trying to guarantee the success of an innovation is almost certain to make it less likely that it will succeed. — Seth Godin

I always feel like if someone has stage fright, I really try and say, "Listen, these people want you to succeed, they want to have a good evening. They want to see something really great. They don't want to see something crappy. They don't. They want to be at something really special." — Laurie Anderson

I think people who try to run their marriages according to other people's expectations are insane. It is quite hard enough to keep a marriage together till death do you part- which I think should be the aim, even if it can't always succeed- without trying to do it to please other people. A good marriage is whatever suits the participants, and our marriage suited us fine. — Lynn Barber

She raised her face to the canopy and took a deep breath, as if trying to hold on to her temper. He wondered if she'd succeed. His Tally had always been very quiet ... except with him. He alone had known that she was neither shy nor particularly calm. The girl had a temper like a stick of dynamite. Quick to heat, quick to blow over. — Nalini Singh

A man who tries to surpass another may perhaps succeed in equaling inot actually surpassing him, but one who merely follows can never quite come up with him: a follower, necessarily, is always behind. — Quintilian

If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. — William James

Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed. — W. Somerset Maugham

We are not trying to prevent new clean energy businesses from succeeding. Any business that's economical, that can succeed in the marketplace, any form of energy, we're all for. As a matter of fact, we're investing in quite a number of them, ourselves - whether that's ethanol, renewable fuel oil. — Charles Koch

When I heard that there were artists, I wished I could some time be one. If I could only make a rose bloom on paper, I thought I should be happy! Or if I could at last succeed in drawing the outline of winter-stripped boughs as I saw them against the sky, it seemed to me that I should be willing to spend years in trying. — Lucy Larcom

If the argument is that failure helps you succeed, well, so does success and it's quicker. This suggests at least one reason for trying to succeed. — Norman Geras

If at first you don't succeed, getting outa bed is a great first step to trying again. — Danny A. Brown

It is has been a long time since I have written one of my statuses about life. I have been very busy trying to promote my Fan page, Friends and services, and my books. However, I can tell you all one thing for certain. I am not a Quitter. I will not stop writing books. I will not stop pushing myself to succeed. I will not stop being who I am.
I am a winner. Winning is an attitude. You take the good with the bad and you keep on going. It gets hard, you get tired and sometimes burnt out but you keep on going anyway, because you can.
Winners have setbacks, but winners learn tighten their belts and go on. Winner look at what has gone wrong and instead of complaining they find ways of doing it better. Winners know that Rome was not built in a day and take every day as it comes.
Winners do not whine, they roar. — Alexander Stone

By deciding to succeed and actually trying to make your dreams come true, you are already successful. Your effort and continued dedication distinguish you from those who don't have the courage or stamina to really try. — Daniel Klatt

The truth is that you cannot attain God if you have even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out. — Ramakrishna

Because we imagine that we are what humanity was divinely destined to become, we assume that our prehistoric ancestors were trying to be us, but just lacked the tools and techniques to succeed. We invest our ancestors with our own predelictions in what seem to us primitive and unevolved forms. As an example of all this, we take it for granted that our religions represent humanity's ultimate and highest spiritual development and expect to find among our ancestors only crude, fumbling harbingers of these religions. We certainly don't expect to find robust, fully developed religions whose expressions are entirely different from ours. — Daniel Quinn

I do the best I can to approve and disapprove only of my own behavior. I don't always succeed, but I try. I'm trying now and I'm going to keep at it. — Robert B. Parker

If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong. — Leo Rosten

I almost always have a strong passion about the things I do. I wouldn't say aggressive, but I am always trying very hard to make sure that things will succeed. — Pansy Ho

The problem with trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you so very often succeed. — C.S. Lewis

I rise, I fall
Always trying.
I succeed, I fail
Seldom crying.

You've been so far
Yet near to my heart.
I remember you
Seldom crying.

You've left me
I've been so lonely.
I try to laugh and end up,
Seldom crying. — MoKSh

Heroes in drama are people who try hard to reach a virtuous ideal. And whether they succeed or fail really doesn't matter - it's the trying that counts. — Aaron Sorkin

I'm not trying to rescue you, but I am trying to help you succeed. There's a difference. — Jodi Meadows

All forms of government ultimately are not going to succeed in trying to control or censor the Internet. — Rupert Murdoch

But it was not long before I found myself alone, in the dark. That is why I gave up trying to play and took to myself for ever shapelessness and speechlessness, incurious wondering, darkness, long stumbling with outstretched arms, hiding. Such is the earnestness from which, for nearly a century now, I have never been able to depart. From now on it will be different. I shall never do any thing any more from now on but play. No, I must not begin with an exaggeration. But I shall play a great part of the time, from now on, the greater part, if I can. But perhaps I shall not succeed any better than hitherto. Perhaps as hitherto I shall find myself abandoned, in the dark, without anything to play with. Then I shall play with myself. To have been able to conceive such a plan is encouraging. — Samuel Beckett

The Spirit tells me - Fidel Castro will die - in the 90s. Oooh my! Some will try to kill him and they will not succeed. But there will come a change in his physical health, and he will not stay in power, and Cuba will be visited of God. — Benny Hinn

I'm not trying to succeed for the people who are waiting for me to fail. I'm doing it for myself. I'm one for the 'You only live once so you should do as much as you can' sort of thing. — Zara Phillips

How to succeed? Try hard enough. — Malcolm Forbes

Being cool, like being humble or radical, is a perfectly elusive goal that you fail at the minute you reveal that you are trying to succeed. — Christine Jeske

With comedy, you have to do it right. In a drama, there's a lot of different ways to succeed in a moment. But comedy comes from reality. You can't try to be funny. — Jack Nicholson

We Don't always succeed in what we try, certainly not by the world's standards, but I think you'll find it's the willingness to keep trying that matters most. — Fred Rogers

We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, which will not through a whole range of economic development, regional development corporate subsidization programs. — Stephen Harper

It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits - like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere, or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits - involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding - inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, or a Roosevelt can feel himself to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, or a Blake. Understanding is forever unattainable. — Malcolm Muggeridge

So when you approach any individual, make sure you realize that he will do what he wants to do. Don't laugh at his choices; investigate them to better understand what he's trying to accomplish.
If you wish to trade, you will have to offer the person something he wants more than what he has already. It's his resources you are seeking. He will control their use. You will have to be in tune with his desires or there will be no exchange.
The consumer is the object of the whole process. And he chooses in terms that are meaningful to him (not to you). You will succeed only as you find ways to satisfy him. — Harry Browne

Caution has its place, no doubt, but we cannot refuse our support to a serious venture which challenges the whole of the personality. If we oppose it, we are trying to suppress what is best in man - his daring and his aspirations. And should we succeed, we should only have stood in the way of that invaluable experience which might have given a meaning to life. — Carl Jung

Ben Says: Those that constantly talk down and try to belittle you are just trying to make themselves feel bigger by making you feel small. Don't let them succeed ... just rise above them.
Timothy Pina
Bullying Ben — Timothy Pina

Can I do it? I'd rather not try and fail.
That's stupid talk Maya. Every try will not succeed. But if you're going to live, live at all, your business is trying ... You fail, you get up and try again. — Maya Angelou

All theology is a doomed but necessary attempt to express the inexpressible. God is the elusive mystery we try to capture and convey in language, but how can that ever be done? If the word water is not itself drinkable, how can the words we use to express the mystery of God be themselves absolute? They are metaphors, analogies, figures of speech, yet religious people have slaughtered and condemned each other over these experimental uncertainties. Our glory and agony as humans is that we long to find words that will no longer be words, mere signifiers, but the very experience they are trying to signify; and our tragedy is that we never succeed. This is the anguish that lies at the heart of all religion, because, though our words can describe our thirst for the absolute, they can never satisfy it. — Richard Holloway

A mind filled with negative thoughts makes you feel miserable and inadequate and will lead to failure after failure no matter how hard you try to succeed. — Steve Backley

Don't say you'll try. Say you'll succeed. Trying means you're giving yourself the option to fail. Don't give yourself that option. I didn't and look at me five years sober. — L. H. Cosway

I have found that to tell the truth is the hardest thing on earth. Harder than fighting in a war, harder than taking part in a revolution.
"If you try it, you will find that at times sweat will break upon you. You will find that even if you succeed in discounting the attitudes of others to you and your life, you must wrestle with yourself most of all. Fight with yourself. Because there will surge up in you a strong desire to alter facts, to dress up your feelings.
"You'll find that there are many things you don't want to admit about yourself and others.
"As your record shapes itself, an awed wonder haunts you. And yet there is no more exciting an adventure than trying to be honest in this way. The clean, strong feeling that sweeps you when you've done it makes you know that. — Richard Wright

Of course there's pressure, and it's still there with every book. Each one is harder to write than the last, basically because you're always trying to write a better book. You won't always succeed, of course, but that has to be what you're shooting for. — Mark Billingham

Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles one overcomes while trying to succeed — Booker T. Washington

Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use. — Herbert Spencer

These, gentlemen, are my rules: if I don't succeed, I keep trying; if I do succeed, I keep quiet; and in any case I don't undermine anyone. I'm not an intriguer, and I'm proud of it. I wouldn't make a good diplomat. They also say, gentlemen, that the bird flies to the fowler. That's true, and I'm ready to agree: but who is the fowler here, and who is the bird? That's still a question, gentlemen! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Now that our troops are mired in a dangerous effort to defeat the insurgency and are also trying to help rebuild the country, Americans of all political persuasions simply want the United States to succeed and our troops to be as safe as possible. — Harry Reid

To succeed in the business of the future we have to become the very people we are trying to reach — Brian Solis

Nobody knows what I am trying to do but I do and I know when I succeed. — Gertrude Stein

The Palestinians want a state, but they have to give peace in return. What they're trying to do in the United Nations is to get a state without giving Israel peace or giving Israel peace and security. And I think that's, that's wrong. That should not succeed. That should, that should fail. — Benjamin Netanyahu

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment. — R. Buckminster Fuller

Changing the world is like trying to straighten a dog's tail. However much you may try, you won't succeed. But although the tail won't straighten, if you keep trying every day, at least you will put on some muscle. Similarly, even though it is difficult to make a change, our effort to do so in itself brings positive results. It will help us change. Without waiting for others to change,if we change ourselves first, that will make a difference. Instead of worrying about results, focus on doing our best in what we are engaged in. — Mata Amritanandamayi

If you want to succeed you must never stop learning, never stop trying and just keep being yourself. You are your own person. You make the choices in life that affect you. — Ruby Rose

The richness and endless variety of human relationships ... that's what authors, even the finest and greatest, only succeed in hinting at. It's a hopeless business, like trying to dip up the ocean with a tea-spoon. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

If you're a salesman, you have to deal with yourself the way you are. Not how you'd like to be.
If you don't have what it takes, you can waste a lot of time asking yourself "How can I get what it takes?" The question you should be asking yourself is, "Is there something else that takes what I have to offer?" Because if there's something you can succeed at, just the way you are, you won't have to waste a lot of time trying to change yourself. Which you're never going to be able to do, anyway. — Helen DeWitt

Fear is a natural emotion in life, but you cannot let it dictate your actions. When you act out of fear, you will only meet failure. But act out of determination to conquer that fear, and you will succeed at anything. Maybe not the first time, or the second or third, but eventually - as long as you keep trying - you can conquer your fears and succeed. — Tiana Dalichov

By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible. — C.S. Lewis

If you listen to the real in you, that part that's pulsing and has questions and is trying to figure something out, it will shape your life in a way where, when you get to be sixty, you'll succeed. You'll be happy about your life. — Eve Ensler

They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit. We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realised that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer. — Hwang Sok-yong

At that moment, when you feel like you were born into the wrong society or culture, you have a few choices. You can ignore the gap between the world around you and what you feel within. There are lots of ways to do this, from TV to drugs to desperately trying to succeed within the world's big social inventions. Another way is to rail at the world for its failings, creating a narrative in which you are right and "they" are wrong. Or you can be humbled by trying to change the world around you just enough to realize your own potential. — Ron Davison

We're human. We all occasionally wet ourselves. No one is really better than anyone else. We're just all trying to make it through the year as best we can. We screw up sometimes. We succeed sometimes. We laugh. We cry. We go on.
Those are the things we should really share with each other this holiday season, right, if we dare send a letter? We should share the truth. We should share the insanity. — Wade Rouse

We try to abolish intervals by our manic insistence on keeping busy, on doing something. And as a result, all we succeed in doing is destroying all hope of tranquility ... You have to learn to immerse yourself in the silences between. — Lyall Watson

You know the magazine I work for: all we're trying to do is create an artificial mankind, a frivolous one that will no longer be open to seriousness or to humor, which, until it dies, will engage in an increasingly desperate quest for fun and sex; a generation of definitive kids. We are going to succeed, of course; and, in that world, you will no longer have your place. — Michel Houellebecq

Don't quit.
When your latest efforts fail, don't quit. When your performance is scoffed and ridiculed, don't quit. When you're told you have no talent, don't quit. When you come in dead last, don't quit. When it seems an uphill fight to keep going, don't quit. When you can't see any possible way to achieve your goals, don't quit. When your last supporter is you alone, don't quit. When discouragement and depression seem your constant companion, don't quit. When you feel like quitting, don't quit.
Time and time again you will crave relief from the harsh fight of trying to succeed. You will falsely think that quitting will bring peace and reprieve, but alas, only regret and disappointment await the quitter. Victory means never ever ever quitting.
So don't quit.
Do not quit. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The only good excuse for not succeeding is DEATH! Unless you're trying to be a ghost. Then it's LIFE! — Craig Benzine

Being yourself is one of the hardest things because it's scary. You always wonder whether you'll be accepted for who you really are. I decided to call my record 'Inside Out' because that's my motto about life. I don't think you ever succeed at trying to be anyone else but who you truly are. — Emmy Rossum

I can't tell you how to succeed, but I can tell you how to fail: Try to please everybody. — Eleanor Roosevelt

I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don't succeed, I consider it my own fault. — Dmitri Shostakovich

The goal is not necessarily to succeed but to keep trying, to be the kind of person who has ideas and see them through. — Esme Raji Codell

If you can create something useful, its reachable audience (e.g., employers or customers) is essentially limitless - which greatly magnifies your reward. On the other hand, if what you're producing is mediocre, then you're in trouble, as it's too easy for your audience to find a better alternative online. Whether you're a computer programmer, writer, marketer, consultant, or entrepreneur, your situation has become similar to Jung trying to outwit Freud, or Jason Benn trying to hold his own in a hot start-up: To succeed you have to produce the absolute best stuff you're capable of producing - a task that requires depth. — Cal Newport