quotes, quotations and passages about determination

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination.

Tommy Lasorda

Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments for success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies. Lord Chesterfield

Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills. B.C. Forbes There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained. W.E.B. Du Bois

The line between failure and success is so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a person has thrown up his or her hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. Elbert Hubbard

Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. Ronald E. Osborn

A handful of pine-seed will cover mountains with the green
majesty of a forest. I too will set my face to the wind
and throw my handful of seed on high.

Fiona MacLeod

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To reach the port of heaven we must sail, sometimes with the wind
and sometimes against it--but we must sail, not drift or lie at anchor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

There are but two roads that lead to an important goal and to the
doing of great things: strength and perseverance. Strength is
the lot of but a few privileged people; but austere perseverance,
harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us
and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows
irresistibly greater with time.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This shall be my parting word: Know what you want
to do--then do it. Make straight for your goal and
go undefeated in spirit to the end.

Ernestine Schumann-Heink

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

African proverb

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.

Confucius

The little troubles and worries of life, so many of which we meet,
may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them
stepping-stones to a noble character and to Heaven. Troubles
are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.

Henry Ward Beecher

I won't have any money to leave behind.
I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind.
But I just want to leave a committed life behind.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat
except from within, no really insurmountable barrier
save our own inherent weakness of purpose.

Elbert Hubbard

As the sculptor devotes him or herself to wood and stone,
I would devote myself to my soul.

Toyohiko Kagawa

The drop of rain maketh a hole in the
stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.

Hugh Latimer

Constant dripping hollows out a stone.

Lucretius

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The rung of the ladder was never meant to rest upon,
but only to hold a our foot long enough to enable us
to put the other somewhat higher.

Thomas Henry Huxley

The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.

Air Force motto

We must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it.
We cannot solve a problem by saying "It's not my problem," and hoping
that someone else will solve it for us. We can solve a problem only when
we say "This is my problem and it's up to me to solve it."

M. Scott Peck

determination 2 - perseverance

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low, and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit--
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar.
So, stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things go wrong that you mustn't quit.

unattributed

If you don't make a total commitment to whatever you're doing,
then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking.
It's tough enough getting that boat to shore with everybody rowing,
let alone when a person stands up and starts putting his or her life jacket on.

Lou Holtz

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others,
for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you.
Act for yourself! Face the truth.

Katherine Mansfield

Articles and book excerpts on determination:

Lessons from a Spider Asoka Selvarajah

O Lord, you give us everything, at the price of an effort.

Leonardo Da Vinci

The longer I live, the more deeply am I convinced that that which
makes the difference between one person and another--between
the weak and the powerful, the great and the insignificant--is
energy--invisible determination.

Charles Buxton

Another discovery which came out of my investigation was the fact that
when one gives his or her order to produce a definite result and stands
by that order, it seems to have the effect of giving one what might be
termed a second sight which enables him or her 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 one is in that state of mind in
which he or she knows exactly what one wants and is
fully determined not to quit until he or she finds it.

Alexander Graham Bell

As long as you’re actively pursuing your dream with a practical plan,
you’re still achieving, even if it feels as though you’re going nowhere
fast. It’s been my experience that at the very moment I feel like
giving up, I’m only one step from a breakthrough. Hang on long
enough and circumstances will change, too.
Trust in yourself, your dream and spirit.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual
wanting to do a certain thing: wanting it so much that you are
practically blind to other things, that nothing else will satisfy you.
I know I have said a lot when I say, "You can do anything you want
to do." But I mean it. . . Blunder ahead with your personal view.
The real work of art is the result of a magnificent struggle.

Robert Henri