Effort quotes
3.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside effort — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more compelling American tradition forbids criticism of the government when the nation is at war... Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence dissenters."
"Thinkers do not accept the inevitable; they turn their efforts toward changing it."
"Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do"
"What thwarts us and demands of us the greatest effort is also what can teach us most."
"People value and spend their money more wisely when they acquire it by their own efforts - also known as work."
"The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the easy life of the gods would be a lifeless life."
"Social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of the contributions of the intelligentsia to enhancing their own power and the power of those they serve."
"A new philosophy, a new way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid dearly for and only acquired with much patience and great effort"
"In the mouth of Society are many diseased teeth, decayed to the bones of the jaws. But Society makes no effort to have them extracted and be rid of the affliction. It contents itself with gold fillings."
"Blessings don’t come from outside, but from within. Whatever blessings we receive are the result of our own efforts and positive actions."
"Very often the effort men put into activities that seem completely useless turns out to be extremely important in ways no one could foresee. Play has always been the mainspring of culture."
"O Lord, thou givest us everything, at the price of an effort."
"All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work."
"We may know ourselves, and yet even with all the efforts we make, we do not know ourselves. We know our fellowman, and yet we do not know him, because we are not a thing, and our fellowman is not a thing. The further we reach into the depths of our being, on someone else's being, the more the goal of knowledge eludes us."
"To comprehend an idea, a person must simultaneously accept it as true. Conscious analysis - which, depending on the idea, may occur almost immediately or with considerable effort - allows the mind to reject what it intially accepted as fact."
"He who is harmony with Nature hits the mark without effort and apprehends the truth without thinking."
"Since God is satisfied with our good will and honest efforts, let us also be satisfied with the outcome He gives to them, and our actions will never be without good results"
"I explain the law of compensation like this: ‘Returns are minimal in spite of massive effort at the start, yet returns can be massive with minimal effort over time’."
"Full effort is full victory."
"To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread."
