Worth Doing Quotes & Sayings

You know, a documentary is only interesting once in a while. If you look at a whole book of Dorothea [Lange]'s where she has row after row of people bending over and digging out carrots - that can be very tedious. And so it's only once in a while that something happens that is worth doing. — Imogen Cunningham

Nothing worth doing — Maggie Stiefvater

No matter, no matter how, they are doing the best they can, with the miserable means at their disposal, a voice, a little light, poor devils, that's what they're paid for, they say, No sign of hardening, no sign of softening, impossible to say, no matter, it's a good average, we only have to continue, one day he'll understand, one day he'll thrill, the little spasm will come, a change in the eye, and cast him up among us. To be on the watch and never sight, to listen for the moan that never comes, that's not a life worth living either. And yet it's theirs. — Samuel Beckett

Few things are worth doing perfectly. — Mason Cooley

An experiment not worth doing is not worth doing well. — Peter Medawar

I've stopped going to see art films because every critic gives them four stars and say things like 'masterpiece,' 'spellbinding' and 'mesmerizing.' I mean, they're doing that with my film, but I don't want to use those blurbs. Critical reviews aren't worth too much anymore because just about every film can get one or two of them. — Terry Zwigoff

Enthusiasm is the thing which makes the world go round. Without its driving power, nothing worth doing has ever been done. Love, friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to career or hobby-all these, and most of the other good things of life, are forms of enthusiasm. — Robert Haven Schauffler

It won't be as easy, but lots of things that are worth doing aren't easy. It just takes commitment, discipline, and, most important, faith that it's all going to work out. — Jason Fried

You want it to be easy?
But if it was easy, everyone
Would be doing it..
And if everyone is doing it?
Why do you want to be the same ...
Trust that the struggle you face
Is your path to success
& remember
If it's easy, it's not worth it. — Nikki Rowe

If there was a moral issue involved, she would, of course, defend her position to the end. But long ago her mother had taught her that often it is the little things over which people battle foolishly, losing friends, disturbing peace of mind, destroying serenity with no end in view save that they continue to defend the position they have already taken. It was far better, her mother pointed out, to give in gracefully, remembering that a fight in a lesser cause is never worth the struggle. She maintained that by doing so one gained everything really worth having, serenity, sweetness, and inner strength. — Loula Grace Erdman

You're not a Dom, not a Master, Josh," she said. "You've never even been close. You're a submissive. A gorgeous, incredibly sensual submissive that any Mistress in her right mind would cherish forever. You were doing as your Mistress told you to do, and she used you cruelly. I won't let you blame yourself for anything, Josh, except maybe for not recognizing it sooner, because you are an intelligent man. Your inly crime is in denying your own worth, because she made you doubt yours. A Mistress doesn't do that, Josh. — Joey W. Hill

S. Neill put it, promising a reward for an activity is "tantamount to declaring that the activity is not worth doing for its own sake."26 Thus, a parent who says to a child, "If you finish your math homework, you may watch an hour of TV" is teaching the child to think of math as something that isn't much fun. — Alfie Kohn

Your time as the entrepreneur is worth hundreds of dollars an hour. If you are doing tasks you could hire out, those are stopping you from earning that kind of money. — Jim Palmer

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. I take that one step further. You shouldn't do anything unless you do it right. — George Foreman

If something is worth doing right, it is worth doing right now. — Wes Fesler

Jacob, what's wrong with you? Why would you want to do this? What kind of husband . . . what kind of man are you?"
"I don't know." Jacob's voice was a whisper. "But before I pledged myself to Annie, I pledged myself to God."
"I hope you know what you're doing." Montrose glanced back towards the kitchen. In their silence, they heard Annie's low sobs. "I hope it's worth it. — Willowy Whisper

Every time we choose action over ease or labor over rest, we develop an increasing level of self-worth, self-respect and self-confidence. In the final analysis, it is how we feel about ourselves that provides the greatest reward from any activity. It is not what we get that makes us valuable, it is what we become in the process of doing that brings value into our lives. It is activity that converts human dreams into human reality, and that conversion from idea into actuality gives us a personal value that can come from no other source. — Jim Rohn

What's the return on investment of college? What's the return on investment of having children, spending time with friends, listening to music, reading a book? The things that are most worth doing are worth doing for their own sake. Anyone who tells you that the sole purpose of education is the acquisition of negotiable skills is attempting to reduce you to a productive employee at work, a gullible consumer in the market, and a docile subject of the state. What's at stake, when we ask what college is for, is nothing less than our ability to remain fully human. — William Deresiewicz

What does being a woman today mean? Is there a right way of doing it? Is there a wrong way of doing it? Different kinds of women, female friendships: It's all pretty funny, and worth making fun of. — Elizabeth Meriwether

I know some of my self-worth comes from tennis, and it's hard to think of doing something else where you know you'll never be thebest. Tennis players are rare creatures: where else in the world can you know that you're the best? The definitiveness of it is the beauty of it, but it's not all there is to life and I'm ready to explore the alternatives. — Martina Navratilova

River smiled sweetly at his tormentors and told them, "If you want to kick my ass, go ahead. Just explain to me why you're doing it."
After a confused pause, one of the skinheads said, "Ah, you wouldn't be worth it."
"We're all worth it, man," River said with a beatific smile. "We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes. — Gavin Edwards

What we most need in our lives, though, is something worth doing, worth it because we care. — Seth Godin

If you're doing anything interesting in the world, you are going to have critics. You can't stop it. Move forward. It's not worth losing any sleep over. — Jeff Bezos

Nothing is worth doing pointlessly. — Marcus Aurelius

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty ... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well. — Theodore Roosevelt

The danger of letting people ask, "Is this the best way to do this job?" is that after a while they may ask, "Is this job worth doing? — John Holt

My mother, for example, told the German officer not to kill her. She'd make it worth his while. And then, when they were doing it, she pulled a knife out of her belt and sliced open his chest, just like she used to open chicken breasts to stuff with rice for the Sabbath meal. — Etgar Keret

Have patience when it is really worth doing so, no matter what, and notwithstanding how hard impatience knocks at your door, and you will know patience better — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If a role isn't different, it's not worth doing. — Louis Gossett Jr.

When somebody has convinced you that you're not worth anything to anybody anymore, and they spend a lot of time doing it, you start believing it yourself. — Ric Flair

I don't have a strong sense of self-worth unless I'm doing something. — Gwen Stefani

Women are dirt searchers; their greatest worth is irradicating rings on collars and tables. Never mind real-estate boards' corruption and racism, here's your soapsuds. Everything she is doing is peripheral, expendable, crucial, and non-negotiable. Cleanliness is next to godliness. — Florynce Kennedy

Sometimes the hardest things in life, are the things most worth doing. It's because we haven't figuered them out yet, doesn't mean we wont. — Richard Castle

If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. — E.L. James

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. — Louis D. Brandeis

The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. [ ... ] If something is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us. I could see it so clearly, and I could see it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did. — Donald Miller

It's not worth doing if you're not going to do it perfectly. — A.C. Efverman

The difference between and amateur and a professional.. a professional believes if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well. An amateur believes if a job is worth doing, it very well may be worth doing badly. — Robert Littell

No man worth his salt, not even such a useless fribble as you clearly consider me to be, is going to watch his woman breaking her back over work he should be doing himself. — Karen Robards

Oh yes. It was well worth it, doing things the proper way. — Patrick Rothfuss

I feel it most in my work, because there aren't roles about women who are spiritually evolving. That anyone would even write something like that, something that's worth doing, would be a miracle! — Olympia Dukakis

This is the only thing that makes life worth living. If you have succeeded in doing something you wanted to do, something that seemed impossible - well, then, make the most of it, with all your heart, to the very brim. — Ivan Turgenev

Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought, go about doing good. — Henry David Thoreau

All work is worth doing well. And there are things to be enjoyed about most jobs ... — Cynthia Voigt

If it is not scary, it is not worth doing. — Rhys Ifans

A day lived without doing something good for others is a day not worth living. — Mother Teresa

The only complicated things worth fighting for will change the world in some way and/or make you lots of money, and a complicated relationship will only keep you from doing either. — Ingrid Weir

The only theology worth doing is that which inspires and transforms lives, that which empowers us to participate in creating, liberating, and blessing the world. — Carter Heyward

While the government is "studying" and funding and organizing its Big Thought, nothing is being done. But the citizen who is willing to Think Little, and, accepting the discipline of that, to go ahead on his own, is already solving the problem. A man who is trying to live as a neighbor to his neighbors will have a lively and practical understanding of the work of peace and brotherhood, and let there be no mistake about it - he is doing that work ...
A man who is willing to undertake the discipline and the difficulty of mending his own ways is worth more to the conservation movement than a hundred who are insisting merely that the government and the industries mend their ways.
(pg.87, "Think Little") — Wendell Berry

I have never heard a dancer asking for advice about how to stay focused on her footwork, or a painter complaining about the dull day-to-day task of painting. What task worth doing isn't worth daily effort? Do you think Michelangelo was having fun the whole time he was on his back painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. — Ursula K. Le Guin

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

There are lots of things worth doing that are no way to make a living. They are agreeable ways to make a more agreeable life. — Kurt Vonnegut

We believed anything worth doing was worth over-doing — Steven Tyler

New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along! — Arthur C. Clarke

Make this the golden rule, the equivalent of the Hippocratic oath: Everything we ask a child to do should be worth doing. — Philip Pullman

The first discipline is the realization that there is a discipline - -that all art begins and ends with discipline, that any art is first and foremost a craft. We have gone far enough on the road to self-indulgence now to know that. The man who announces to the world that he is going to "do his thing" is like the amateur on the high-diving platform who flings himself into the void shouting at the judges that he is going to do whatever comes naturally. He will land on his ass. Naturally. You'd think, to listen to the loudspeakers that surround us, that no man had ever tried to "do his thing" before. Every poet worth reading has, but those really worth reading have understood that to do your thing you have to learn first what your thing is and second how to go about doing it. — Archibald MacLeish

Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. — Ayn Rand

Almost everything we'll ever do in life that is really powerful, that really produces a result in our lives, that quantum-leaps us to a new level ... requires us to do something uncomfortable. It takes risks to achieve. It's often scary. It requires something you didn't know before or a skill you didn't have before. But in the end, it's worth it. As former Congressman Ed Forman says, 'Winners are those people who make a habit of doing things losers are uncomfortable doing.' Make today your day to start that uncomfortable new habit. — Jack Canfield

The greatest gift life has to offer is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. — Theodore Roosevelt

My mom is a huge woman of worth for me because she's been my idol my whole life. My mom was someone who juggled everything. She had her own career, she raised five kids, she was Superwoman ... and she was never satisfied doing just one thing because ... she probably just had too much energy. — Blake Lively

But we got through it. Together. It didn't happen overnight and it wasn't easy.
Nothing worth doing ever is.
And love is worth everything — Madeline Sheehan

I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident ... Almost none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They were achieved by having trained myself to endure and tolerate hard work. — Thomas A. Edison

Because somehow, in these houses with all the wires, nothing is actually worth doing unless it is seen by other people. — Anonymous

Is it worth getting one more tweet out, or putting your phone down and doing something that is worth tweeting? — Seth Godin

Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing -to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There's a rule they don't teach you at Harvard Business School. It is: If anything is worth doing, it's worth doing to excess. — Edwin Land

The challenge is simple: Quitting when you hit the Dip is a bad idea. If the journey you started was worth doing, then quitting when you hit the Dip just wastes the time you've already invested. Quit in the Dip often enough and you'll find yourself becoming a serial quitter, starting many things but accomplishing little. Simple: If you can't make it through the Dip, don't start. If you can embrace that simple rule, you'll be a lot choosier about which journeys you start. — Seth Godin

If you dream of something worth doing and then simply go to work on it and don't think anything of personalities, or emotional conflicts, or of money, or of family distractions; it is amazing how quickly you get through those 5,000 steps. — Edwin Land

If something's worth doing, then it's worth doing properly, even if it is only offering a biscuit with a cup of tea. — Hazel Gaynor

Unless we are able to commit to a permanent growing settlement [on Mars], then I don't think just going there with humans and coming back is worth doing. The expense of planning to come back is like the people who left Europe to come to America and then to turn around and go back to Europe, it really doesn't make any sense at all. — Buzz Aldrin

Music is worth doing just because. It doesn't have to be justified by some political point of view, and it's kind of insulting to the music to make it a tool for something else. — Elliott Smith

It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing. — Martin Fleischmann

Do not be so hard on the child. She is a product of her upbringing, just as you are. If you judge her worth based on frivolities, then you are doing the same as those who judge you based on your simple clothing. — Brandon Sanderson

Though finally the worst thing about regret is that it makes you duck the chance of suffering new regret just as you get a glimmer that nothing's worth doing unless it has the potential of to fuck up your whole life — Richard Ford

Your self-worth and self-esteem cannot be changed by doing positive affirmations. If that were the case many people would be super confident and are not. It may appear to work for some, but only because they have already faced the hurts inside that have caused low self-worth and low self-esteem, and are ready to feel differently.

Acknowledging the pain and the suffering that take place inside you, and allowing the feelings, will take time, but this new way of handling these feelings will change the way you relate to you and to the outside world. — Kelly Martin

The New Hampshire girls who came to Lowell were descendants of the sturdy backwoodsmen who settled that State scarcely a hundred years before ... They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake anything that was worth doing. My dreamy, indolent nature was shamed into activity among them. They gave me a larger, firmer ideal of womanhood. — Lucy Larcom

Henry James proposed asking of art three modest and appropriate questions: What is the artist trying to do? Does he do it? Was it worth doing? — Robert Adams

What we want to do in this moment is rarely what's best for us. We need to take a longer view of life and to realize that to become someone worth becoming, I probably need to be doing things I don't want to be doing. — Vince Antonucci

They say ol' man Beach is crazy. And maybe he is. But he goes ahead anyways. He's the sort of man who knows the only things worth doing are the things might break your heart. — Colum McCann

This passive alertness is the key. But don't become disturbed by language. Start with effort. Just keep in mind that you have to leave it, and go on leaving it. Even leaving will be an effort; but a moment comes when everything has gone. Then you are there, simply there not doing anything - just there, being. That "beingness" is what is meant by enlightenment, and all that is worth knowing, worth having, worth being, happens to you in that state. — Osho

I'm keeping everything on a human level, but essentially everything in our lives has to be on a human level. Any specification of something by art history doesn't make any sense. The point is, if you have a loving, adorable, supportive mother anywhere in the world and you tell her all of your dreams, all of your aspirations, and the reward you would like, and she understands you, then it's not worth doing. — Lawrence Weiner

That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be . Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing. — Mary Balogh

The odds are, you highly underestimate how awesome you are. Stop doing that. — Rob Liano

When I first moved to Los Angeles I came down there on a wing and a prayer in a way. I had about six weeks worth of money to make it there and that was just from doing a couple of episodes of the X-Files just to finance that trip. I got there and it is either you got to hit it or you got to go and, thankfully, I found a job. — Ryan Reynolds

Understanding the intricacies involved in raising someone with a physical or mental challenge for those who have never experienced it is like trying to understand anything foreign; impossible, though definitely worth doing anyway. — Lynette Louise

If we were honest about it, our lives are all fiascoes. There really isn't anything of importance except maybe who gets handed your heart and what they do with it. And just so you don't spend a lot of time fretting over it, even that may be pretty meager." A few seconds passed. "We're just small, Judy. All of us, even though we do stuff every day of the week to distract ourselves from the fact, it's still true. We're just little and small and maybe if we have some backbone we do a few things worth doing and then we're gone. — Tom McNeal

I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world. — Margaret Mead

If you're not having fun it's not worth doing. — Tommy Bolin

You have to go in there and hit him. Show him that his tactics don't work. Bernard Hopkins is a fighter that you have to get straight to the point with. You can't lollygag and bullshit because that's his game. Being serious and doing my job throwing punches in the ring, that's my game. I don't come to put on a show for the people. I come to give the people a fight and give them their money's worth; give them real entertainment. — Tavoris Cloud

No matter what you do if it isn't genuine it's not worth doing, if it isn't meant with good heart it's not worth saying, and if it's a darkness around you perhaps it's not worth remembering. — E.E.D. Horton

There's satisfaction in knowing that you're doing something for somebody, you're doing something that's important. That's the basic line in both jobs. You're doing something important. That's what all firefighters feel about themselves: they feel important. I've done other jobs where I've made more money, but I never felt any sense of worth. — Dennis Smith

I hate complaining about paparazzi, I hate complaining about being recognised, because if I ultimately didn't want to be an actor or in the public eye, I would quit doing what I do. That's not the reason I do it, but I love the work so much that it's worth it. — Leonardo DiCaprio

The challenge is what was making it exciting. You don't want to do anything that's too easy or that you know that you can pull off, otherwise it's really not worth doing. — Robert Rodriguez

If something is too hard to do, then it's not worth doing. You just stick that guitar in the closet next to your shortwave radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle and we'll go inside and watch TV. — Matt Groening

She would never blame him for being the ineffectual idler so long as he did it sincerely, from the attitude that nothing much was worth doing — F Scott Fitzgerald

But now they must've worn off. He thought he may have groaned. It was hard to be sure in his kinda awake state. He tried to move his hand and yelled out at the pain. Oh yeah, fractured wrist. "Easy there, bad boy." Oh my lord. Curtis would know that sexy whisky-dripped baritone anywhere. He'd force open his own eyes now just to see those green eyes looking down at him. He didn't care if his head exploded into a million pieces. It'd be worth it for this sight. "Open those beautiful baby blues," Genesis said in a hushed drawl. Curtis fought through the fog and the pain and cracked open his eyes. He blinked a few times at the harsh light above his head but he kept on until Genesis' gorgeous face was in focus. Curtis' lips parted in a smile. What on earth was he doing there? He believed it was a Monday now. Genesis should be in school. "Gen. — A.E. Via

A nagging focus on time management makes us want to increase the speed of our lives. Maintaining a focus on priority management helps us recognize the need to slow down. When our use of time is built around well-defined priorities, life is less a question of how much we can get done and more a question of whether something is worth doing at all. — Joe Jordan

Love is worth doing. No matter how much it hurts. — Charles Martin

Only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do anything that is worth doing. — Frederick William Robertson

After all, a job isn't worth doing unless you enjoy it. — Dinah Sheridan