Love what you do. Believe in your instincts. And you’d better be able to pick yourself up and brush yourself off every day.
—Mario Andretti (b.1940) Italian-born American Sportsperson
Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call fourth. … Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources. … Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives fare within his limits he possesses powers of various sorts he habitually fails to use.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.
—Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American Author
One does not always do the best there is. One does the best one can.
—Catherine II of Russia (1729–96) Russian Empress
Work, every hour, paid or unpaid; see only that thou work and thou canst not escape thy reward. Whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn, or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses, as well as to the thought. The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Do a little more each day than you think you possibly can.
—Lowell Thomas (1892–1981) American Writer, Businessperson, Journalist, Radio Personality
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.
—Viktor Frankl (1905–97) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
—Duke Ellington (1899–1974) American Jazz Pianist, Composer, Bandleader
There is nothing of which every man is so afraid, as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.
—John Wooden (1910–2010) American Sportsperson
Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
Do your best every day and your life will gradually expand into satisfying fullness.
—Horatio Dresser (1866–1945) American New Thought Religious Leader
It may seem to your conceited to suppose that you can do anything important toward improving the lot of mankind. But this is a fallacy. You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors. Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God’s Paradise.
—Phillips Brooks (1835–93) American Episcopal Clergyman, Author
When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.
—William Arthur Ward (1921–94) American Author
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them … work, family, health, friends and spirit, and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls … family, health, friends and spirit … are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same.
—Indian Proverb
It’s my job to be better than the rest, and that’s enough reason to go for me. It’s my job to be better than the rest, and that makes the day for me.
—Jimmy Buffett (b.1946) American Musician, Author
Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.
—Theodore Isaac Rubin (1923–2019) American Psychiatrist, Author
Everyone’s got it in him, if he’ll only make up his mind and stick at it. None of us is born with a stop-valve on his powers or with a set limit to his capacities, There’s no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.
—Charles M. Schwab (1862–1939) American Businessperson
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it, when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it, even if I did not have the ability in the beginning.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
This is the beginning of a new day God has given me this day to use as I will I can waste it or use it for good but what I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it! When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain, and not loss; good, and not evil; success, and not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it.
—Unknown
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. Try to do your duty and you will know at once what you are worth.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.
—Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French Theologian, Musician, Philosopher, Physician
You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
—Michael Jordan (b.1963) American Sportsperson, Businessperson
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