July 31, 2024, 9:45 p.m.
In the journey of life, perseverance stands as a steadfast companion, urging us to push forward despite challenges and setbacks. It's the grit and determination that fuel our dreams and help us overcome obstacles. Whether you're facing a difficult task, working towards a long-term goal, or simply need a boost of motivation, these carefully selected perseverance quotes offer a wellspring of inspiration. Dive into these 67 nuggets of wisdom and let them ignite your inner drive, reminding you that every step forward, no matter how small, brings you closer to your aspirations.
1. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” - Confucius
2. “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” - Babe Ruth
3. “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
4. “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” - Thomas A. Edison
5. “I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.” - Madeleine Albright
6. “A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.” - Charles de Gaulle
7. “Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.” - Winston S. Churchill
8. “The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.” - Woodrow Wilson
9. “Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” - Winston S. Churchill
10. “Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.” - Henry James
11. “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” - Nelson Mandela
12. “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” - Martin Luther
13. “It always seems impossible until it's done.” - Nelson Mandela
14. “Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
15. “To reach a port we must set sail –Sail, not tie at anchorSail, not drift.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt
16. “In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance.” - H. Jackson Brown
17. “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” - James A. Michener
18. “There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.” - Lemony Snicket
19. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.” - Vince Lombardi
20. “The person who doesn't scatter the morning dew will not comb grey hairs” - Hunter S. Thompson
21. “I may not be where I want to be, but if I stop now, I'll NEVER get where I'm going!” - Laura Lynch
22. “But if you ask me what I remember (about 1945), I will say it was the year Franklin D. Roosevelt died and I got one of his flowers. I will tell you that yellow rose give me the courage to do the right thing even if it was hard. I will say it was the time in my life when I learned all of us is fragile as a mimosa blossom. But the miracle of all is, When push comes to shove, we can be just as tough as Hickory. It mostly hurts at first. After a while it starts to feel better.” - Joyce Moyer Hostetter
23. “Perseverance is the act of true role models and heroes.” - Liza Wiemer
24. “What's the bravest thing you ever did?He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.” - Cormac McCarthy
25. “Let me tell your something. I'm from Chicago. I don't break.” - Barack Obama
26. “I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something – the eternal ‘what’s the use?’ – sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis.” - Gustave Flaubert
27. “I had made up my mind to find that for which I was searching even if it required the remainder of my life. After innumerable failures I finally uncovered the principle for which I was searching, and I was astounded at its simplicity. I was still more astounded to discover the principle I had revealed not only beneficial in the construction of a mechanical hearing aid but it served as well as means of sending the sound of the voice over a wire. Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that when a man gives his order to produce a definite result and stands by that order it seems to have the effect of giving him what might be termed a second sight which enables him to see right through ordinary problems. What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.” - Alexander Graham Bell
28. “Hardships make or break people.” - Margaret Mitchell
29. “I tried always to do better: saw always a little further. I tried to stretch myself.” - Audrey Hepburn
30. “We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down, Trot!” - Charles Dickens
31. “Never lose your passion 2 dream.” - Pablo
32. “It's the climbing that makes the man. Getting to the top is an extra reward. ” - Robert Lipsyte
33. “It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate: and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get--when our will strains after a path we may not follow--we need neither starve from inanition, not stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden fruit it longed to taste--and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.” - Charlotte Brontë
34. “The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward.” - Author-Poet Aberjhani
35. “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson
36. “Every pain is a lesson.” - Frank Delaney
37. “Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.” - Winston S. Churchill
38. “What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?—I wish I knew... Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can...” - Tennessee Williams
39. “When things go wrong, don't go with them.” - Elvis Presley
40. “Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.” - Malcolm X
41. “He who has never left his hearth and has confined his researches to the narrow field of the history of his own country cannot be compared to the courageous traveller who has worn out his life in journeys of exploration to distant parts and each day has faced danger in order to persevere in excavating the mines of learning and in snatching precious fragments of the past from oblivion.” - Al Masudi
42. “Just do your best," Mom said. "You can't do any better than your best.” - Kim Wayans
43. “Life keeps throwing me curve balls and I don't even own a bat. At least my dodging skills are improving.” - Jayleigh Cape
44. “No one can travel so far that he does not make some progess each day. So let us never give up. Then we shall move forward daily in the Lord's way. And let us never despair because of our limited success. Even though it is so much less than we would like, our labour is not wasted when today is better than yesterday!” - John Calvin
45. “Peace is more of an internal settlement rather than what is visible on the external.” - Criss Jami
46. “Do not be discouraged by the resistance you will encounter from your human nature; you must go against your human inclinations. Often, in the beginning, you will think that you are wasting time, but you must go on, be determined and persevere in it until death, despite all the difficulties.” - Brother Lawrence
47. “Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.” - Aberjhani
48. “Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back.” - Criss Jami
49. “There is a tree. At the downhill edge of a long, narrow field in the western foothills of the La Sal Mountains -- southeastern Utah. A particular tree. A juniper. Large for its species -- maybe twenty feet tall and two feet in diameter. For perhaps three hundred years this tree has stood its ground. Flourishing in good seasons, and holding on in bad times. "Beautiful" is not a word that comes to mind when one first sees it. No naturalist would photograph it as exemplary of its kind. Twisted by wind, split and charred by lightning, scarred by brushfires, chewed on by insects, and pecked by birds. Human beings have stripped long strings of bark from its trunk, stapled barbed wire to it in using it as a corner post for a fence line, and nailed signs on it on three sides: NO HUNTING; NO TRESPASSING; PLEASE CLOSE THE GATE. In commandeering this tree as a corner stake for claims of rights and property, miners and ranchers have hacked signs and symbols in its bark, and left Day-Glo orange survey tape tied to its branches. Now it serves as one side of a gate between an alfalfa field and open range. No matter what, in drought, flood heat and cold, it has continued. There is rot and death in it near the ground. But at the greening tips of its upper branches and in its berrylike seed cones, there is yet the outreach of life. I respect this old juniper tree. For its age, yes. And for its steadfastness in taking whatever is thrown at it. That it has been useful in a practical way beyond itself counts for much, as well. Most of all, I admire its capacity for self-healing beyond all accidents and assaults. There is a will in it -- toward continuing to be, come what may.” - Robert Fulghum
50. “... that's how life should be, when one person loses heart, the other must have heart and courage enough for both.” - José Saramago
51. “One may not always know his purpose until his only option is to monopolize in what he truly excels at. He grows weary of hearing the answer 'no' time and time again, so he turns to and cultivates, monopolizes in his one talent which others cannot possibly subdue. Then, beyond the crowds of criticism and rejection, the right people recognize his talent - among them he finds his stage.” - Criss Jami
52. “If everyone could be a successful and rich author, there would be no point in working so hard. Where is the fun in that?” - L.A. Jones
53. “Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?” - Anton Chekhov
54. “...I've learned that doing what you think is right doesn't always make you feel good. For another, I've learned that sometimes you just have to keep on going when you want to do nothing but drop. And that just doing the everyday things, like keeping a shop running or getting up every morning, will keep the work going until things can straighten out again. And doing those things right every day soon becomes more important than the more pressing issues of the time.” - Ann Rinaldi
55. “I am sore wounded but not slainI will lay me down and bleed a whileAnd then rise up to fight again” - John Dryden
56. “Christians walk as strangers in the world: They are untamed. They are free. To persevere with love, yet untamed by man, is often what leaves that open space for divine revelation when God so wills.” - Criss Jami
57. “Perseverance is everything. We all stumbled when we took our first steps yet we were running sooner than we realized, and then we couldn’t stay still. Why stay still now?” - Rob Liano
58. “He whines, he complains, he ducks out of the most obvious responsibility. He is vain, petty and maddening, but he doesn't ever quit.” - Megan Whalen Turner
59. “Whatever you do in your life, always go the distance.” - Ken Norton
60. “I know that suffering is one place where He ministers to us the most. So to think that we've had our quota would be foolish. I am just longing for the day when all the pain stops.” - Mary Beth Chapman
61. “We can cry for years but sometimes gotta smile too.” - Aberjhani
62. “Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.” - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
63. “In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity — please observe, a plodding mediocrity — for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.” - Benjamin N. Cardozo
64. “It’s probably my job to tell you life isn’t fair, but I figure you already know that. So instead, I’ll tell you that hope is precious, and you’re right not to give up.” - C.J. Redwine
65. “You don't have to be strong to survive a bad situation; you simply need a plan.” - Shannon L. Alder
66. “Patience is the antidote to the restless poison of the Ego. Without it we all become ego-maniacal bulls in china shops, destroying our future happiness as we blindly rush in where angels fear to tread. In these out-of-control moments, we bulldoze through the best possible outcomes for our lives, only to return to the scene of the crime later to cry over spilt milk.” - Anthon St. Maarten
67. “You must dare, and dare again, and then dare a little bit more, and go on daring.” - Justin Cotillard