Quotations on Achievement

A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.
- Robert Burton (1577 - 1640), English scholar and churchman.
The Anatomy of Melancholy

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.
- Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881), British prime minister and writer.
Coningsby

An ornament to her profession.
- John Bunyan (1628 - 1688), English preacher and writer.
The Pilgrim's Progress

Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.
- John XXIII (1881 - 1963), Italian pope.

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first.
- Robert Downey, Jr. (1965 - ), U.S. actor.
The Charlie Rose Show

Before I was 23, I had conceived everything.
- Carolus Linnaeus (1707 - 1778), Swedish naturalist.
Autobiographical sketch (Neil Tomkinson (tr.))

Europe has never produced and never will in our day bring forth a single human soul who cannot be matched and over-matched in every line of human endeavor by Asia and Africa.
- W. E. B. Du Bois (1868 - 1963), U.S. sociologist, poet, and novelist.
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, "The Souls of White Folk"

Every man who is high up likes to feel that he has done it himself; and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that. It's our only joke. Every woman knows that.
- J. M. Barrie (1860 - 1937), British playwright and novelist.
What Every Woman Knows

For, as I suppose, no man in this world hath lived better than I have done, to achieve that I have done.
- Thomas Malory, English writer.
Le Morte d'Arthur

Happy he who like Ulysses has made a glorious journey.
- Joachim du Bellay (1522? - 1560), French poet.
Les Regrets, Sonnet 31

He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done and he did it.
- Edgar A. Guest (1881 - 1959), British-born U.S. poet and journalist.
The Collected Works of Edgar A. Guest, "It Couldn't Be Done"

How can one catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger's lair?
- Banchao (32 - 102), Chinese diplomat and military leader.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to earth.
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 - 1963), U.S. president.
Address to joint session of Congress

I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.
- Arthur Miller (1915 - ), U.S. playwright.
Death of a Salesman

I got through a number of things in the area of defense, like showing the importance of cruise missiles and getting them more accurate so that we can have precise precision.
- Dan Quayle (1947 - ), U.S. politician.Referring to his achievements as a senator.
The New York Times

I have no hesitation in stating that they were exaggerated or slanted or untrue. We were united by one common bond of interest. We spoke each other's language—and that was the language of pioneer women of the air.
- Ruth Rowland Nichols (1901 - 1961), U.S. pioneer aviator.Referring to press reports about rivalry between herself and Amelia Earhart.
Wings for Life

If I had been born a man I would have conquered Europe.
- Marie Bashkirtseff (1860 - 1884), Russian painter and diarist.Referring to her artistic work.
Journal of a Young Artist

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), U.S. poet.
"The Builders"

Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment?
- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894), Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet.
The New Arabian Nights, "The Adventure of a Hansom Cab"

It is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will.
- Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906), Norwegian playwright.
Brand

It is not the least praise to have pleased leading men. Not everyone is lucky enough to get to Corinth.
- Horace (65 - 8 BC), Roman poet.
Epistles

It matters not how long you live, but how well.
- Publilius Syrus (lived 1st century BC), Roman writer.
Maxims (Darius Lyman (tr.))

Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
- Dag Hammarskjöld (1905 - 1961), Swedish statesman and diplomat.
Markings (Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden (trs.))

Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter.
- Cuthbert Collingwood (1748 - 1810), British admiral, October 21, 1805.Said before the Battle of Trafalgar.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.
- Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), U.S. poet.
Leaves of Grass, "O Captain! My Captain!"

Of course he was a wonderful all-round man, but the act of walking round him has always tired me.
- Max Beerbohm (1872 - 1956), British essayist, critic, and caricaturist.Referring to William Morris.

Of course I realized there was a measure of danger. Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn't any good reason to refer to it.
- Amelia Earhart (1897 - 1937), U.S. aviator.Referring to her flight in the Friendship.
20 Hours: 40 Minutes—Our Flight in the Friendship

Only that which brings something quite new is really worthy of the name of a book.
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799), German physicist and writer.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
- Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), Chinese philosopher, administrator, and moralist.
Analects

People at the top of the tree are those without qualifications to detain them at the bottom.
- Attributed to Peter Ustinov (1921 - ), British actor, director, and writer.

Promotion should not be more important than accomplishment, or avoiding instability more important than taking the right risk.
- Peter Drucker (1909 - ), Austrian-born U.S. management consultant.

The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of becoming.
- Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881), Scottish historian and essayist.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, "Jean Paul Friedrich Richter"

The happy state of getting the victor's palm without the dust of racing.
- Horace (65 - 8 BC), Roman poet.
Epistles

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), U.S. poet.
"The Ladder of Saint Augustine"

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882), U.S. poet and essayist.
Essays, Second Series, "New England Reformers"

The secret I learned early on from my father was to run scared and never think I had made it.
- Thomas Watson, Jr. (1914 - 1993), U.S. business executive.

The strategist's method...challenge the prevailing assumptions with a single question: Why? and to put the same question relentlessly to those responsible for the current way of doing things until they are sick of it.
- Kenichi Ohmae, Japanese business strategist.

The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.
- Dwight Whitney Morrow (1873 - 1931), U.S. diplomat and politician.
Letter to his son

There is an old saying "well begun is half done"—'tis a bad one. I would use instead—Not begun at all 'til half done.
- John Keats (1795 - 1821), British poet.
Letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon

Think nothing done while aught remains to do.
- Samuel Rogers (1763 - 1855), British poet and art collector.
Human Life

To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
- Vauvenargues (1715 - 1747), French soldier and moralist.
Réflexions et maximes

To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students, I say, you, too, can be president of the United States.
- Speaking at Yale University's commencement, where he received an honorary degree.

Under different circumstances, I could have been Leonardo da Vinci.
- Chris Eubank (1966 - ), British boxer.
The Observer Magazine

When Women write, the Criticks, now-a-days
Are ready, e'er they see, to damn their Plays;
Wit, as the Men's Prerogative, they claim,
And with one Voice, the bold Invader blame.
- Mary Davys (1674 - 1732), English playwright.
The Self-Rival: A Comedy

When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way you'll command the attention of the world.
- George Washington Carver (1864 - 1943), U.S. inventor and horticulturist.

Who cares about great marks left behind? We have one life, rigidly defined. Just one. One life. We have nothing else.
- Ugo Betti (1892 - 1953), Italian dramatist and poet.
The Inquiry (Gino Rizzo (tr.))

Women can do nothing that has permanence.
- Selma Lagerlöf (1858 - 1940), Swedish writer.
The Miracles of Anti-Christ

Year by year we are becoming better equipped to accomplish the things we are striving for. But what are we actually striving for?
- Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903 - 1987), French political scientist, economist, and journalist.

Yes, I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole.
- Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
British prime minister and writer, 1869.Said after being appointed prime minister.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
- Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), British writer.
The Circle

You 'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
- David Everett (1770 - 1813), U.S. lawyer and writer.Written at the age of seven.
"Lines Written for a School Declamation"

You have to admit that most women who have done something with their lives have been disliked by almost everyone.
- Françoise Gilot (1921 - )
French artist.
Remnant