71 Quotes On Persistence

In the journey towards achieving our goals, persistence often acts as the steadfast companion that sees us through moments of doubt and adversity. It's the quiet yet powerful force that drives us to keep moving, even when the path seems unclear or fraught with challenges. In this blog post, we delve into a curated collection of 71 inspiring quotes on persistence, each offering a unique perspective and a surge of motivation to help you stay the course. Whether you're seeking encouragement to push past an obstacle or looking for words of wisdom to share with others, these quotes serve as a testament to the enduring power of perseverance. Join us as we explore the insights and experiences of thinkers, leaders, and visionaries who have recognized the true essence of persistence in the pursuit of success and fulfillment.

1. “You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.” - Isaac Asimov

2. “Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.” - Hal Borland

3. “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On!' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” - Calvin Coolidge

4. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” - Maya Angelou

5. “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston S. Churchill

6. “When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.” - John Steinbeck

7. “If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.” - Winston S. Churchill

8. “It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” - Louis Sachar

9. “We are made to persist.that's how we find out who we are.” - Tobias Wolff

10. “I took off my sweatshirt and dropped it on the grass and set off around the track. As soon as I started running, the world changed. The bodies spread out across the green of the football field were parts of a scene remembered, not one real at this moment. The secret of effort is to keep on, I told myself. Not for the world would I have stopped then, and yet nothing- not even if I had been turned handsome as a reward for finishing- could have made up for the curious pain of the effort.” - Harold Brodkey

11. “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” - James A. Michener

12. “Persistence is the key to solving most mysteries.” - Christopher Pike

13. “A mans life is interesting primarily when he has failed. I well know. For its a sign that he tried to surpass himself.” - Georges Clemenceau

14. “Cat, I'll let you in on a little secret. We don't all love our jobs every day. And doing something you have passion for doesn't make the work part of it any easier...It just makes you less likely to quit.” - Kate Jacobs

15. “A friend of mine, the most innocuous dreamer who ever lived, once set a forest on fire to see, as he said, if it would catch as easily as people said. The first ten times the experiment was a failure; but on the eleventh it succeeded all too well.” - Charles Baudelaire

16. “O snailClimb Mount FujiBut slowly, slowly!” - Kobayashi Issa

17. “As if the dead really do persist, even in a bottle of wine.” - Thomas Pynchon

18. “Life isn't as magical here, and you're not the only one who feels like you don't belong, or that it's better somewhere else. But there ARE things worth living for. And the best part is you never know what's going to happen next.” - O.R. Melling

19. “No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That's the only way to keep the roads clear.” - Greg Kincaid

20. “The only things you learn are the things you tame” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

21. “They key of persistence opens all door closed by resistence ” - John Di Lemme

22. “First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.” - Octavia Butler

23. “One mistake does not have to rule a person's entire life.” - Joyce Meyer

24. “Even the best inborn potentialities for achievement do not render unnecessary patient and persistent practice.” - Ralph Alfred Habas

25. “Slight persistent effort can move you successfully forward in anything you do.” - Kelli Wilson

26. “Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.” - Cormac McCarthy

27. “It may take little time to get where you want to be, but if you pause and think for a moment, you will notice that you are no longer where you were. Do not stop—keep going.” - Rodolfo Costa

28. “Talent is nothing without persistence.” - Dean Crawford

29. “This path was not that of my conscious choosing. But after persistent subconscious confrontation, I have finally embraced what is, 'souly' for me...and I am thankful, when called upon, to be able to share and give to those who seek their own way of the path.” - T.F. Hodge

30. “Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” - Peter F. Drucker

31. “The Motto of Champions: If you are hurt, you can suck it up and press on. If injured, you can rebound and return bigger and better...and continue to inspire!” - T.F. Hodge

32. “Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.” - William Makepeace Thackeray

33. “I don't believe in failure. I'm perseverant - I believe in failing.” - Bauvard

34. “The sky is not my limit...I am.” - T.F. Hodge

35. “The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.” - Shannon Hale

36. “Change is hardest at the beginning, messiest in the middle and best at the end.” - Robin Sharma

37. “Don't ever give up. Don't ever give in. Don't ever stop trying. Don't ever sell out. And if you find yourself succumbing to one of the above for a brief moment, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, whisper a prayer, and start where you left off.But never, ever, ever give up.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

38. “Do not sit still; start moving now. In the beginning, you may not go in the direction you want, but as long as you are moving, you are creating alternatives and possibilities.” - Rodolfo Costa

39. “Patience and persistence are the keys... The keys to unlock doors of success... With these two virtues, you grow in reasoning and experience.” - Ogwo David Emenike

40. “Listen, Stephen King used to write in the washroom of his trailer after his kids went to sleep. Harlan Ellison wrote in the stall of a bathroom of his barracks during boot camp. Elmore Leonard got up at 5 AM every morning to write before work.Every time my alarm goes off at 5 AM and I don’t want to get up, or I would rather sit down after work and play a videogame, I think about those guys. Take care of your family. They need you and love you. Make time for them. Then stop screwing around and finish your damn book.” - Bernard Schaffer

41. “When I have tried and failed, I shall have failed.” - Sophocles

42. “The slogans “hang on” and “press on” have solved and will continue to solve the problems of humanity.” - Ogwo David Emenike

43. “Do it badly; do it slowly; do it fearfully; do it any way you have to, but do it.” - Steve Chandler

44. “As long as there’s breath in You - PERSIST!” - Bernard Kelvin Clive

45. “When your efforts run in the face of conventional wisdom and accepted mastery, persistence can look like madness. If you succeed in the end, this extreme originality reformulates into a new level of mastery, sometimes even genius; if you fail in the end, you remain a madman in the eyes of others, and maybe even yourself. When you are in the midst of the journey…there’s really no way of knowing which one you are.” (p.129)” - Hilary Austen

46. “What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you then so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror; because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited; because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species; your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away, and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far, and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat, merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.” - Mary Shelley

47. “There is no such thing as helplessness. It's just another word for giving up.” - Jefferson Smith

48. “If you wish to be out front, then act as if you were behind.” - Lao-Tsze

49. “The harder you fall, the heavier your heart; the heavier your heart, the stronger you climb; the stronger you climb, the higher your pedestal.” - Criss Jami

50. “You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.” - Tom Hiddleston

51. “Life has moments that feel as if the sun has blackened to tar and the entire world turned to ice.  It feels as if Hades and his vile demons have risen from the depths of Tartarus solely for the purpose of banding to personally torture you, and that their genuine intent of mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish is tearing you to shreds.  Your heart weighs as heavily as leaden legs which you would drag yourself forward with if not for the quicksand that pulls you down inch by inch, paralyzing your will and threatening oblivion.  And all the while fire and brimstone pour from the sky, pelting only you.  Truly, that is what it feels like. But that feeling is a trial that won't last forever.  Never give up.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

52. “You can either follow your dreams with determination and persistence until they become true, or you can be blown by the winds of fate - were anything can happen.” - Steven Redhead

53. “Intelligence entails a strong mind, but genius entails a heart of a lion in tune with a strong mind.” - Criss Jami

54. “Temporary setbacks are overshadowed by persistence.” - Quentin L. Cook

55. “Whatever you do in your life, always go the distance.” - Ken Norton

56. “Patience can be bitter but her fruit is always sweet.” - Habeeb Akande

57. “Is anything truly impossible? Or is it that the path to our goals appears too unclear to follow? It seems to me that if you seek hard enough, pray hard enough, you usually stumble across a scattering of breadcrumbs that marks the trail leading to the goal you once considered beyond your reach.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

58. “Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time.” - Habeeb Akande

59. “People don't just live one life. They keep coming back until they get it right.” - C R Strahan

60. “Most of Csongor's time in T'Rain had been spent blundering about in a state of hapless newbie confusion. Only his long experience as a system administrator, struggling with Byzantine software installations, had prevented hum from plummeting into despair and simply giving up. Not that any of the sysadmin's knowledge and skills were applicable here. The psychological stance was the thing: the implicit faith, a little naive and a little cocky, that by banging his head against the problem for long enough he'd be able to break through in the end.” - Neal Stephenson

61. “Success doesn't come to you; you go to it.” - T. Scott McLeod

62. “As you think and act, so your world becomes.” - T. Scott McLeod

63. “It's not about what you're capable of, it's about what you are willing to endure.” - Orrin Woodward

64. “While persistence offers no guarantees, it does give 'luck' a chance to operate.” - Tom Shippey

65. “Do you have the talent?' is rarely the question. 'Do you have the guts to finish?' is the real question.” - Orrin Woodward

66. “Narrow the focus, take the ascent one step at a time, and it's amazing what odds a man can beat.” - Courtney Schafer

67. “You meet dozens of people who tell you you can't do it. Surround yourself with the people who believe you will do it. Seek out and spend time with those rare people who tell you, no BS, why you haven't done it yet, what it takes to do it, and how they could help you do it. Note how this advice works whether 'it' is robbing a bank, opening a gallery, or writing a bestseller. "It" is up to you. But you can't do it alone.” - Heather Grace Stewart

68. “She knew she could answer it. She knew how to put one foot in front of the other even when every step hurt. And she knew there was pain in the journey, but there was also great beauty. She’d seen it standing on rooftops and in green eyes and in the smallest, ugliest rock. She would find the answer.” - Veronica Rossi

69. “An aspirational diet will have you dreaming of success; but it’s the attachment of expectations and tangible goals that feeds the desire, persistence, and fortitude required to make the win.” - Lorii Myers

70. “You must dare, and dare again, and then dare a little bit more, and go on daring.” - Justin Cotillard

71. “Writing is difficult. You do it all alone without encouragement and without any certainty that you'll ever be published or paid or even that you'll be able to finish the particular work you've begun. It isn't easy to persist amid all that. [...] Sometimes when I'm interviewed, the interviewer either compliments me on my 'talent', my 'gift' or asks me how I discovered it. [...] I used to struggle to answer this politely, to explain that I didn't believe much in writing talent. People who want to write either do it or they don't. At last I began to say that my most important talent - or habit - was persistence. Without it, I would have given up writing long before I finished my first novel. It's amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up.” - Octavia E. Butler