Favorite Quotations - Quotes on Motivation and Action

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.

Henry Ford

Fart while the wind blows.

Duane Alan Hahn (September 2, 2009)

Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.

Thomas Carlyle

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Will Rogers

Some people not only expect opportunity to knock, they expect it to beat down the door.

Unknown

You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.

Wayne Gretzky

Men who do things without being told draw the most wages.

Edwin H. Stuart

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

Andrew Carnegie

My dad delighted in me, which is an interesting realization. Anything that I would do throughout the week was kind of like when you're at a casino and you get casino chips but it's not real money until you go to the cashier's window. On Sunday, when I'd go home and do laundry, I would tell him about my week. Just to watch him delight turned those chips, if you will, into hard cash. When that was taken away from me, you realize that you have to do things for your own gratification and not for parental acceptance or whatever. You just need and want to do it for yourself.

Mike Myers from Inside the Actors Studio (adapted)

Doing something worthwhile creates its own motivation.

Duane Alan Hahn

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes you just have to have the confidence and the belief in the fact that you're going to pull it off and you just keep going forward every day and you don't allow the self-doubt or any doubt or even a shadow of a doubt to enter your mind because you just have to keep going forward.

Barrie M. Osborne (adapted)

The End of All Things documentary on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Edition) DVD

Enthusiasm is a beneficial parasitic life form. If you allow it to die, a little piece of yourself dies with it.

Duane Alan Hahn

Silicon Valley is like a person running around in front of a steamroller. You can outrun the steamroller on any given day. But if you ever sit down you get squashed.

Bob Boschert

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

Albert Einstein

Never mistake motion for action.

Ernest Hemingway

Action is the proper fruit of knowledge.

Thomas Fuller

The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato—the only good belonging to him is underground.

Thomas Overbury

No opportunity is ever lost. Someone else seizes the ones you missed.

Unknown

So-called negative feedback is often love in disguise.