determination quotes

Americans play to win at all times. I wouldn’t give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor ever lose a war.

My priority is cricket. Everything that I get apart from it is a result of the effort on the field. Everything else follows. I am pretty aware of my priorities, and I don’t really focus on things that are not as important to me as cricket.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.

I will not be triumphed over.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.

Do not reveal what you have thought upon doing, but by wise council keep it secret being determined to carry it into execution.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

Do your damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

I felt unhappy and trapped. If I left baseball, where could I go, what could I do to earn enough money to help my mother and to marry Rachel? The solution to my problem was only days away in the hands of a tough, shrewd, courageous man called Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

I would storm the gates of Hell if Third Marine Air Wing was overhead.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

I’ve played with IVs before, during and after games. I’ve played with a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a torn shoulder, a fractured tooth, a severed lip, and a knee the size of a softball. I don’t miss 15 games because of a toe injury that everybody knows wasn’t that serious in the first place.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.

You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

It was a personal decision for me to stand and say that cricket is all I have in life, there’s nothing I need to do other than cricket. If I want to achieve whatever I thought as a kid, I need to work hard and not let it go to waste.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

I was the kid that was the 199th pick that never had the body for it. People didn’t think I’d play one year in the NFL, and now I’m going on my 17th year.

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.

Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

You know, I’m trying to chase rings, and that’s all I’m about. So that’s where the conversation stops for me.

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King’s daughter, I would have gone nevertheless.

Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No almosts.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.

This lady is not for turning.

The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

I defy gravity.

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.