Work And Effort Quotes & Sayings

[I]nfectious disease is merely a disagreeable instance of a widely prevalent tendency of all living creatures to save themselves the bother of building, by their own efforts, the things they require. Whenever they find it possible to take advantage of the constructive labors of others, this is the path of least resistance. The plant does the work with its roots and its green leaves. The cow eats the plant. Man eats both of them; and bacteria (or investment bankers) eat the man ... — Hans Zinsser

Just like today, the Protestants and their teachings had to fight with the prevalent order of the day which taught that: Work is only for making profit. Make money with minimum effort. The culture of the day viewed work as a burden to be avoided. The secular world of the time taught that you should do no more than what was enough for good living. — Sunday Adelaja

You would think that this would be whether the entrepreneur's idea is actually a good one. But finding a good idea is apparently not all that hard. Finding an entrepreneur who can execute a good idea is a different matter entirely. One needs a person who can take an idea from proposal to reality, work the long hours, build a team, handle the pressures and setbacks, manage technical and people problems alike, and stick with the effort for years on end without getting distracted or going insane. Such people are rare and extremely hard to spot. — Atul Gawande

My work on human capital began with an effort to calculate both private and social rates of return to men, women, blacks, and other groups from investments in different levels of education. — Gary Becker

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

There were high school coaches such as Charles Boston that took me under his wing and taught me the fundamentals of football. And when I went to college there was Robert Hill who took me there and he showed me what hard work and determination would do if you put forth the effort and you take a little time. — Walter Payton

It is all very well and good for Linda Lovelace, the star of the movie, to advocate sexual freedom; but the energy she brings to her role is less awesome than discouraging. If you have to work this hard at sexual freedom, maybe it isn't worth the effort. — Roger Ebert

Of the total creative effort represented in a finished work, 75 percent or more of a writer's labor goes into designing the story designing story tests the maturity and insight of the writer, his knowledge of society, nature, and the human heart. Story demands both vivid imagination and powerful analytic thought. — Robert McKee

I really try to take care of myself. I really put forth the effort to make a regimen just a part of my life. When I can't, for instance if I'm in a location someplace and I can't work out because of the schedule of the picture or whatever it is, as much as I normally do when I'm home, I still do something. — Carl Weathers

His Majesty knows best what is suitable for us. There's no need for us to be advising Him about what He should give us, for He can rightly tell us that we don't know what we're asking for (cf. Mt. 20:22). The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer ? and don't forget this, because it's very important ? should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every possible effort to bring his will into conformity with God's will. — Teresa Of Avila

I do not desire to give myself any fresh political label. Though the formation of the Union of Democratic Control it has been possible for me to work in close co-operation with several of your leaders and this joint effort on the part of the Labour members and radicals is having I think a very beneficial effect. I do not desire to alienate myself from any of my former political associates but rather to endeavour to urge them along the same path which I myself am treading. — Arthur Ponsonby

Love cost its like working a full time job you got to put work and effort into it,and that's why it fails with a lot of people because they on the job part time !!! #GeminiStatus — Jojo1980

Life is what we make it to be; can be other people's life or it can be our special one. The difference is that the first we sit and watch and basically we know the ending but the second is defined by us and require lots of work and effort to define the way we want to live by. It is a journey with no end in sight, no distance measured behind, just going. It is a faith similar to the faith to your God but this one is just faith in yourself and your capability to define a path with a vision of the future that you really can not see but rather feel and sense. — Hisham Fawzi

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

The infrastructure of today's computing environment is for good or ill structured around the Windows operating system. Can you get around that? Yes you can, but you have to work harder to do that and most individuals and most corporations are not going to make that extra effort. — Mark Hall

You can write and visualize goals all you want, but if you do not take action, your goals will never become a reality. To obtain a goal you have never before achieved will require tasks you have never before done. — Cameron C. Taylor

We don't always know the details of our future. We do not know what lies ahead. We live in a time of uncertainty. We are surrounded by challenges on all sides. Occasionally discouragement may sneak in to our day; frustration may invite itself into our thinking; doubt might enter about the value of our work. In these dark moments Satan whispers in our ears that we will never be able to succeed, that the price isn't work the effort, and that our small part will never make a difference. He, the father of all lies, will try to prevent us from seeing the end from the beginning. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

She twisted her hair as if the question made her uncomfortable. "Seeing the past is simple magic. Seeing the present or the future - that is not." "Yeah, well," Leo said. "Watch and learn, Sunshine. I just connect these last two wires, and - " The bronze plate sparked. Smoke billowed from the sphere. A flash of fire raced up Leo's sleeve. He pulled off his shirt, threw it down, and stomped on it. He could tell Calypso was trying not to laugh, but she was shaking with the effort. "Not a word," Leo warned. She glanced at his bare chest, which was sweaty, bony, and streaked with old scars from weapon-making accidents. "Nothing worth commenting on," she assured him. "If you want that device to work, perhaps you should try a musical invocation." "Right," he said. "Whenever an engine malfunctions, I like to tap-dance around it. Works every time. — Rick Riordan

Effort for the sake of effort is as foolish a tradition as paying dues. How much better is hard work when it's amplified by a lever? Platforms teach us skills and allow us to focus on being great, rather than reinventing wheels or repeating ourselves. — Shane Snow

It is facile to imply that smoking, alcoholism, overeating, or other ingrained patters can be upended without real effort. Genuine change requires work and self-understanding of the cravings driving behaviours. — Charles Duhigg

I know well that many of my readers do not think as I do. This also is most natural and confirms the theorem. For although my opinion turn out erroneous, there will always remain the fact that many of those dissentient readers have never given five minutes' thought to this complex matter. How are they going to think as I do? But by believing that they have a right to an opinion on the matter without previous effort to work one out for themselves, they prove patently that they belong to that absurd type of human being which I have called the "rebel mass." It is precisely what I mean by having one's soul obliterated, hermetically closed. Here it would be the special case of intellectual hermetism. The individual finds himself already with a stock of ideas. He decides to content himself with them and to consider himself intellectually complete. — Ortega Y Gasset

You learn by trying, making mistakes, correcting and trying again and again until your reach the desired goal, which is rarely without effort, but is rather a reward for hard work. — Dante Alighieri

Everyone should be taught the nobility of labor, the heroism and splendor of honest effort. As long as it is considered disgraceful to labor, or aristocratic not to labor, the world will be filled with idleness and crime, and with every possible moral deformity. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The rule for every worthwhile man is that no serious job ever shall receive less than his best thought and effort. — William Feather

Sabbath ceasing means to cease not only from work itself, but also from the need to accomplish and be productive, from the worry and tension that accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our efforts to be in control of our lives as if we were God, from our possessiveness and our enculturation, and, finally, from the humdrum and meaninglessness that result when life is pursued without the Lord at the center of it all. — Marva Dawn

It will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which industry's rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the public's right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The science is already there, showing that people's health is at risk. To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children's futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. — Lois Gibbs

Effort and hard work construct the bridge that connects your dreams to reality. — Daisaku Ikeda

(about William Blake)
As for Blake's happiness
a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."
And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition ... He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."
... He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. — Brenda Ueland

Are you going to make me work for it?"
I nodded and straightened up from the post, bringing our bodies so close I could almost feel him against me. "If I don't believe I'm worth the effort, why the hell would you? — Samantha Young

The requirements of the theatre are very great
a strong constitution, energy and unflagging purpose, charm of feature, these alone do not necessarily mean anything, and they must not be relied upon as assurances of an easy conquest of the public heart. It is not only a question of fitness for the work, but of long years of most diligent effort to master the technique of the theatre, and to develop whatever of the art instinct we may possess upon the simplest, broadest, and most human lines. — Julia Marlowe

Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice
they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."
"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.
The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."
"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.
"Learn the guitar. — Henry H. Neff

The idea of gas engines was by no means new, but this was the first time that a really serious effort had been made to put them on the market. They were received with interest rather than enthusiasm and I do not recall any one who thought that the internal combustion engine could ever have more than a limited use. All the wise people demonstrated conclusively that the engine could not compete with steam. They never thought that it might carve out a career for itself. That is the way with wise people
they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work. — Henry Ford

The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow - suggests no effort - and is finished from its beginning. — James Whistler

Make excuses to work out. Go for walks and enjoy scenery. You'd be surprised how many calories you can burn during the day if you just make an effort and become more aware. Also remember to start slow, don't go into it too hard if you are just starting. — Miesha Tate

Love isn't perfect. It's hard work and sometimes it's more effort to be in love than it is to just run away. If you keep looking for perfect, the real thing is going to pass right by you. — Jay Crownover

If the boss is a jerk, get over it. First of all, don't you think there's a good chance that your boss's boss knows what's going on? If so, just keep your head down and do the work. Usually, if you put in maximum effort and produce excellent results, someone in the company is going to take notice. Either you will get promoted or your jerky boss will get the heave-ho. It happens all the time. — Suze Orman

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

Nope," says Hannah. "I call bullshit. You don't deserve to win anything or be in any pageant until you make the effort and do the work. Maybe fat girls or girls with limps or girls with big teeth don't usually win beauty pageants. Maybe that's not the norm. But the only way to change that is to be present. We can't expect the same things these other girls do until we demand it. Because no one's lining up to give us shit, Will. — Julie Murphy

Anoop had obviously worked quite hard to earn the money to buy that glitzy little bracelet. He certainly had enough calluses and deep scars on his hands and fingers to show for all his labour, as each was obtained while trying to support his family in the style they were accustom to. Nonetheless she frequently called him a lazy alcoholic, just because he was temporarily out of work, and then left the stupid bracelet out in public as if it were simply a cheap and silly trinket. — Andrew James Pritchard

The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost of unending effort but, with all the forces of gravity against it, a fleeting poise in mid-air, a lovely attitude worthy to be made immortal in a bas-relief, it was lost as soon as it was gained and there remained no more than the memory of an exquisite emotion. So life, lived variously and largely, becomes a work of art only when brought to its beautiful conclusion and is reduced to nothingness in the moment when it arrives at perfection. — W. Somerset Maugham

That seemed to be a feature of life in the country [Malawi]: to welcome strangers, to let them live out their fantasy of philanthropy - a school, an orphanage, a clinic, a welfare center, a malaria eradication program, or a church; and then determine if in any of this effort and expense there was a side benefit - a kickback, a bribe, an easy job, a free vehicle. If the scheme didn't work - and few of them did work - whose fault was that? Whose idea was it in the first place? — Paul Theroux

What my work is, is my approach to it. It's the practice. And my work is about the effort that I make to get there. And I think if there's anything artistic, it's in that middle space. — Anna Deavere Smith

Sometimes I think your face and your bearing and your energy have so much more to do with the jobs you get than the actual work and the time and the effort that you put in, or the talent even. — Elizabeth Reaser

I begin to understand that failure is its own reward. It is in the effort to close the distance between the work imagined and the work achieved wherein it is to be found that the ceaseless labor is the freedom of play, that what's at stake isn't a reflection in the mirror of fame but the escape from the prison of the self. — Lewis H. Lapham

Wanting a more positive environment isn't enough. You need to do something, and it doesn't require a great deal of effort or some huge change in the way you approach things at work. — Tom Rath

Studies show that a trusting workplace increases employees' level of happiness, work effort, productivity, and engagement. It also provides an environment that encourages open communication and promotes people to share their ideas. — Arthur Miller

I highly recommend Marci Alboher's One Person/ Multiple Careers. It includes lots of practical strategies for living the slash. Malcom Gladwell is also a constant source of inspiration for me. In his book Outliers, Gladwell proposes that there are three criteria for meaningful work - complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward - and that these can often be found in creative work.2 These criteria absolutely fit with what cultivating meaningful work means in the context of the Wholehearted journey. Last, I think everyone should read Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist3 - I try to read it at least once a year. It's a powerful way of seeing the connections between our gifts, our spirituality, and our work (slashed or not) and how they come together to create meaning in our lives. — Brene Brown

Honestly, I don't think I'm a good promoter. I spend almost zero time or effort asking new readers to sample or purchase my work. That's not the job of the author. We should write our best material and leave it up to readers to spread the word. — Hugh Howey

Have the determination to make the effort, the single-mindness to work toward a worthy goal, and the courage not only to face the challenges that inevitably come but also to make a 2nd effort, should such be required, — Thomas S. Monson

As I've told Tyler, there's not a really easy place between being single and being married for us now. We're just so busy that the logistics of our career make dating impossible. I think I'll find a girl at some point that makes all of the extra work and effort that needs to be put into it worth it. But for right now, I just date my drums. — Josh Dun

There's a myth among amateurs, optimists and fools that beyond a certain level of achievement, famous artists retire to some kind of Elysium where criticism no longer wounds and work materializes without their effort. — Mark Matousek

You can make your dreams come true only when you work hard and be willing to put your effort behind your dreams. — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

It's exhausting to care about something that much, to put in all that effort. Whenever I quit smoking it's so much work, and every time I slip up there's this thrill, because I just stop caring. Sometimes it's a relief not to give a shit. — Cristina Moracho

If capitalism worked as the socialists think an economic system ought to work, and provided a constant equality of living conditions for all, regardless of whether a man was able or not, resourceful or not, diligent or not, thrifty or not, if capitalism put no premiums on resourcefulness and effort and not penalty on idleness or vice, it would produce only an equality of destitution. — Milton Friedman

Perhaps whatever there is in my work that may be really interesting to others and surely what is interesting to me, is the result of a sometimes successful effort to free myself from any idea that what I produce must be art ... — Robert Henri

The cast, staff, and crew of a live theater work together toward a common goal: a good performance. Thus, theater is necessarily a group effort. However, it is never a group effort of vague fellow committee members, but of associated autocrats-a playwright, a producer, a director, a stage manager, designers, and, above all, actors. Each accommodates the others, and may overlap others in function when necessary. But each autocrat assumes distinct responsibilities and accepts them completely. — Laurence Sterne

There is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that's worth more to most of us than money. — Malcolm Gladwell

If, with all the time at my disposal, with all the wealth of the resources of this vast universe, to do with as I will, I could not produce a better scheme of life than now prevails, I would be ashamed of my efforts and consider my work a humiliating failure. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I'm bred for farm work, and for such folk, the only A's you get come from effort. Strife and strain are all the world can offer, and they temper you into something unbreakable because Lord knows they'll try
without let up
to break you. — Mary Karr

What it means: The world focuses on what people look like on the outside. God focuses on what people look like on the inside. Do you put more time and effort into being pretty on the outside or the inside? As you get older, you will meet Christian girls who spend more time trying to find the perfect outfit, get the perfect tan, find the perfect lip gloss, and have the perfect body. While there's nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty, we need to make sure it's in balance. God would rather see us work on becoming drop-dead gorgeous on the inside. You know, the kind of girl who talks to Him on a regular basis (prayer) and reads her Bible. — Vicki Courtney

Make an effort with tenacity to make real impact that works and don't just create an impression with deception — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It's not enough to dream. It's not enough to try. It's not enough to set goals or climb ladders. It's not enough to value. The effort has to be based on practical realities that produce the result. Only then can we dream, set goals, and work to achieve them with confidence. — Stephen R. Covey

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

There are a number of institutions globally where the Federal Reserve typically leads the U.S. effort to work with financial regulators from other countries, and we try to, to the extent possible, establish international standards for how - the amount of capital a bank should hold, for example, or how much. — Ben Bernanke

The longing to behold this pre-established harmony [of phenomena and theoretical principles] is the source of the inexhaustible patience and perseverance with which Planck has devoted himself ... The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart. — Albert Einstein

Music, to me, was - is - representative of everything I like most in life. It's beautiful and fun, but very rigorous. If you wanted to be good you had to work like crazy. It was a real relationship between effort and reward. My musical life experiences were just as important to me, in terms of forming my development, as my political experiences or my academic life. — William J. Clinton

I have yet to find the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism. — Charles Schwab

Sometimes, you have no idea why something works and other times, you put so much work and effort into something and it just falls flat. — Jennifer Coolidge

My internal and external life depend so much on the work of others that I must make an extreme effort to give as much as I receive. — Albert Einstein

All my work, all my efforts, all my prayers and tears are for humanity, and the spread of peace and love among mankind. — Mary Baker Eddy

One of the curious things about our educational system, I would note, is that the better trained you are in a discipline, the less used to dialectical method you're likely to be. In fact, young children are very dialectical; they see everything in motion, in contradictions and transformations. We have to put an immense effort into training kids out of being good dialecticians. Marx wants to recover the intuitive power of the dialectical method and put it to work in understanding how everything is in process, everything is in motion. He doesn't simply talk about labor; he talks about the labor process. Capital is not a thing, but rather a process that exists only in motion. When circulation stops, value disappears and the whole system comes tumbling down. — David Harvey

If some men do not choose to think, but survive by imitating and repeating, like trained animals, the routine of sounds and motions they learned from others, never making an effort to understand their own work, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by those who did choose to think and to discover the motions they are repeating. The survival of such mental parasites depend on blind chance; their unfocused minds are unable to know whom to imitate, whose motions it is safe to follow. They are the men who march into the abyss, trailing after any destroyer who promises them to assume the responsibility they evade: the responsibility of being conscious. — Ayn Rand

Walt had a way of communicating that was just magical," composer Richard Sherman told me. "Simple, but magical. He would give you a challenge and say, 'I know you can do this.' He made you believe anything was possible. He made you proud to be on his team. And it really was a team effort - Walt would roll up his sleeves and go to work alongside the rest of us. "He saw potential in people who had never really done anything great. My brother Robert and I really had no track record in the music industry, but Walt heard a few of our songs and he gave us an opportunity and inspired us to keep topping ourselves. Without Walt to inspire us, I don't know where we'd be today. "Walt always wanted you to find something wonderful in yourself, to believe in it and consider it God's gift to you. God gives you the gift, and the rest is up to you. Walt taught me that what you do with that gift is your gift back to God. — Pat Williams

I am convinced Pope Francis' Exhortation can help. The effort must be made to read it because an exhortation can only help if you know it. It is valuable to know the work. It is so rich and I can only encourage our pastors and our communities to work on it, study it, read it, and taste the joy of this beautiful document. — Christoph Schonborn

So ... you like her, Gabe?' Lauren pressed.
'Yes,' he answered, starting work on his spreadsheet again in an effort to stave off more questions.
'She's great, isn't she?'
Shit. A smile tugged at his mouth and Lauren was standing right next to him. No question she could see it. He tried to cover himself by changing the subject. — Victoria Dahl

Really good work probably comes out of a willingness to disclose yourself, open yourself up in spiritual and emotional ways that risk making you look banal or melodramatic or naive or unhip or sappy, and to ask the reader really to feel something. To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this. And the effort actually to do it, not just talk about it, requires a kind of courage I don't seem to have yet. — David Foster Wallace

The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole. — Seamus Heaney

Antiracism is not "my" campaign. I have been doing antiracism organizing, activism, educating and writing for 20 years, in one form or another, but it's not a personal crusade. My work is part of a larger tradition, and larger effort, involving mostly people of color, and of course some white allies as well. — Tim Wise

A case could be made that even the shift into R&D on information technologies and medicine was not so much a reorientation towards market-driven consumer imperatives, but part of an all-out effort to follow the technological humbling of the Soviet Union with total victory in the global class war: not only the imposition of absolute U.S. military dominance overseas, but the utter rout of social movements back home. The technologies that emerged were in almost every case the kind that proved most conducive to surveillance, work discipline, and social control. Computers have opened up certain spaces of freedom, as we're constantly reminded, but instead of leading to the workless utopia Abbie Hoffman or Guy Debord imagined, they have been employed in such a way as to produce the opposite effect. — David Graeber

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

It's not that I have any moral compunctions about work ... but grampa may die to-morrow and he may live for ten years. Meanwhile we're living above our income and all we've got to show for it is a farmer's car and a few clothes. We keep an apartment that we've only lived in three months and a little old house way off in nowhere. We're frequently bored and yet we won't make any effort to know any one except the same crowd who drift around California all summer wearing sport clothes and waiting for their families to die. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Now let me ask my countrymen, Have you ever granted a moment's thought to this very vital problem in the building of our nation ? Have you devised any practical remedies to combat this evil ? Will you, my countrymen, go on without making any intelligent effort to lay the axe at the root of this weaknss and misery ? Will you allow the noted chivalry and the noble hardihood of the Indian to sink into oblivion ? Will you make it a thing entirely of the past ? I implore you, I beseech you, I exhort you my brethren in the name of all that is dearest to you to shake off the lethargy, to show to this world that you were sleeping the sleep of lions only, to rise again with redoubled energy and courage to take the work of rebuilding your nation in right earnest. — Kodi Rammurthy Naidu

A dreamer rises above their inherent fearfulness that they will always produce inferior work and grants oneself a license to put forth their best effort. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Father! Whom I do not know! Father! who filled all my soul and who has now turned His countenance away from me! Call me to You! Be silent no longer! Your silence will not stay this thirsting soul - and could a person, a father, be angry whose son, unexpectedly returning, threw himself on his neck and cried: Father! I have come back! Don't be angry that I am breaking off the travels that you meant for me to endure longer. The world is everywhere the same, in effort and work, reward and joy, but what is that to me? I am only happy where you are, and it is before your countenance that I want to suffer and enjoy. - And You, dear heavenly Father, would turn him away from You? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The mathematician requires tact and good taste at every step of his work, and he has to learn to trust to his own instinct to distinguish between what is really worthy of his efforts and what is not. — James Whitbread Lee Glaisher

We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is marked by devastation. Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true. — Nikola Tesla

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

On the Sabbath day, we are remembering that my relationship with God did not begin with what I've done, it is not sustained by what I do, and it is not guaranteed to the end by my effort or work. I'm saved from beginning to end by Jesus' work. — Mark Driscoll

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

In his book Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort, Zipf argues that he has found a unifying principle, the Principle of Least Effort, which underlies essentially the entire human condition (the book even includes some questionable remarks on human sexuality!). The Principle of Least Effort argues that people will act so as to minimize their probable average rate of work (i.e., not only to minimize the work that they would have to do immediately, but taking due consideration of future work that might result from doing work poorly in the short term). — Christopher Manning

As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own apprehension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity-'teleological activity.' He is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some concrete, objective, impersonal end. By force of being such an agent, he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort. — Thorstein Veblen

I think if you look after yourself on a regular basis, and do the prep beforehand, you don't need to put lots of effort into looking good. It's about finding the right balance - if you have a good diet, drink lots of water, exercise regularly and sleep, you won't look bad on a regular basis. Then you can afford the occasional naughty slip up once in a while, going out and having a delicious glass of wine with friends, having a great laugh and chat then realizing its 2am isn't so bad - you've put in the hard work! — Cat Deeley

Perhaps only when human effort had done it's best and failed, would God's power alone be free to work. — Corrie Ten Boom

We all naturally want to become successful ... we also want to take shortcuts. And it's easy to do so, but you can never take away the effort of hard work and discipline and sacrifice. — Apolo Ohno

Luck works only when you work. Even when it comes to lottery, only those who make the effort to go to a lottery store and buy one, stand a chance to win a lottery". — Pradeep Sarkkar

The believers who say they are praying for me are victims of a lie and think they are doing something good; I let them know they are not. I tell them to imagine I had a newfangled gun that forcibly turned religious people into atheists. I tell them the gun didn't really work, but I thought it did. Let's say I decided to force them to be atheists, so I pointed the atheist gun at them and pulled the trigger. Would they think that was a nice thing to do? Would they appreciate my effort, or would they feel assaulted? When you pray for me, you are asking your god to change me. You are asking your god to forcibly enter my life and my brain and change my way of thinking (using euphemisms such as asking God to "open my heart to Jesus" is evidence of the intent of the assault). — David Silverman

Training can be monotonous, and it is hard work, but you never lose sight of why you are doing it. Every single effort of every single session counts in the months and years leading up to a big event. — Chris Hoy

In the sense that people who produce things and work get rewarded, statistically. You don't get rewarded precisely for your effort, but in Russia you got rewarded for being alive, but not very well rewarded. — Esther Dyson

The elements of trial and error, similar to earth and sky, and fire and water, delineates the constituent modules of our lives. Living robustly includes more failures than successes. We achieve adeptness to living by exhibiting a willingness to make good faith mistakes and learn from each misadventure. Every effort that fails to achieve our expected result is understandably frustrating. The fact is that without ideas and dreams and devoid of occasional crash landings, a person can never hope to achieve any worthy acts to temper resounding personal disappointment. Meaningful success is ultimately defined when a person dies, when an entire life's work devoted to performing passionate and compassionate enterprises can be judge as a whole unit. — Kilroy J. Oldster