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Effectiveness Archives

Don't tell me about the pain. Show me the baby. -- Bill Parcells
The worst time managers always have the most inflexible schedules.
-- Bill Purdin


If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it. -- Marcus Aurelius

Be a fountain, not a drain. -- Rex Hudler

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business. -- Michael J. Fox
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. -- Alan Saporta
In many cases, the more you try to compete, the less competitive you actually are.
-- Kathy Sierra
Only the mediocre are always at their best. -- Jean Giraudoux
Nothing is easy to the unwilling. -- Nikki Giovanni


You never look better, or shine brighter, than when what you say it true.
-- Bill Purdin


Depend not on fortune, but on conduct. -- Publilius Syrus

In an argument, if you are going to fold, do it quickly, completely, and if possible, as gracefully as a lawn chair. -- Bill Purdin
When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another. -- Helen Keller
His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it. -- Lois McMaster Bujold


Everything is worse in the fearing than in the doing. -- Bill Purdin

As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless. -- Rodney Yee
Don't take can't for an answer. -- Bill Purdin
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right. -- Cato the Elder
Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. -- Jules Renard
The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. -- Donald H. Rumsfeld
Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. -- Muhammad Ali
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems. -- Rene Descartes

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. -- Henry Miller

What may be done at any time will be done at no time. -- Scottish Proverb

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
-- Edward Everett Hale

The great end of life is not knowledge but action. -- T. H. Huxley

Action is eloquence. -- William Shakespeare

When you grab something important, do it with care and with matching intent.
-- Bill Purdin
The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all -- doing nothing. -- Ben Franklin

Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes. Jr.

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can. -- Thomas Carlyle
Who begins too much accomplished little. -- German Proverb
A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.
-- Patricia Neal
Promote yourself, but do not demote another. -- Israel Salanter
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
-- Samuel Johnson

Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped. -- African proverb

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. -- Henry David Thoreau

Energy and persistence conquer all things. -- Benjamin Franklin

The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
-- Joseph Joubert, Pensées

Wisdom is knowing what to do next, virtue is doing it. -- David Starr Jordan

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
-- Benjamin Disraeli

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everyone. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections, and enduring undertakings. -- Andre Maurois

The only person stopping you from doing something is yourself, and looking for excuses all the time just gets in the way of obtaining your own goals. It's like the writer who keeps getting up and straightening the pictures in the room.
-- Chrissie Hynde

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do. -- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

Never let the urgent crowd out the important. -- Kelly Catlin Walker

I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving, human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride. -- William James

I've learned that the person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.-- Anonymous

We can do noble acts without ruling earth and sea. -- Aristotle

The beginning is the most important part of the work. -- Plato

People who make excuses cause all the problems of the world or make them worse. -- Bill Purdin

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something. --Helen Keller

Convincing yourself does not win the argument. -- Robert Half

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape. -- Russian proverb

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
-- William Hazlitt

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. -- Walter Bagehot

Action is the antidote to despair. -- Joan Baez

Unless you walk out into the unknown, the odds of a making a profound difference in your life are pretty low. -- Tom Peters

If we would have anything of benefit, we must earn it, and earning it, become shrewd, inventive, ingenious, active, enterprising. -- Henry Ward Beecher

In idleness there is perpetual despair. -- Thomas Carlyle

What if the little rain should say,
'So small a drop as I
Can ne'er refresh a drooping earth,
I'll tarry in the sky.'
-- Anonymous

Hitch your wagon to a star. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are judged by what we finish, not by what we start. -- Anonymous

Well begun is half done. -- Aristotle

Avoiding failure is not the same thing as success. -- Anonymous

Those who cannot admit making stupid mistakes are destined to repeat them over and over. -- Bill Purdin

Do not wait for great strength before setting out, for immobility will weaken you further. Do not wait to see clearly before starting; one has to walk toward the light.

When you take the first step, accomplish that tiny little act, the necessity of which may be apparent only to you, you will be astonished to feel that the effort, rather than exhausting your strength, has doubled it -- and that you already see more clearly what you have to do next. -- Philippe Vernier

I will form good habits and become their slave.
-- Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World

Getting something done is an accomplishment; getting something done right is an achievement.

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
-- Peter F. Drucker

Consider the postage stamp. Its incredible usefulness
consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. -- Joseph Billings

To talk without thinking is to shoot without aiming. -- Anonymous

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. -- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President

Above all, I am motivated by the most mysterious drive we ever experience --that of love -- I don't think there's any influence on my life that compares with love. -- R. Buckminster Fuller
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
J. R. Lowell, Columbus

Never mistake motion for action. -- Ernest Hemingway

In time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. Those who have finished learning find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
-- Eric Hoffer

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins -- not through strength, but through perseverance.

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. -- Oswald Spengler

A genius is someone who shoots at a target no one else sees and hits it.-- Anonymous

You can't shrink your way into greatness. -- Arthur Martinez, CEO, Sears

The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without those things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows. -- Milton Glaser, Graphic Artist

It takes less to keep an old customer satisfied than to get a new customer interested.

Never let yesterday take up too much of today.

Set your goal.
Understand the obstacles.
Clear your mind of doubt.
Create a positive mental picture.
Embrace the challenge.
Stay on track.
Show the world you can do it.

People who make the worst use of time are always the same ones who complain that there isn't enough time.

Make today The Day.

Never get into the thick of thin things. -- Robert Ballard Ballard

It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united. -- Goethe

They that govern the most make the least noise. -- Selden

The beginning is the most important part of the work. -- Plato

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. -- Helen Keller

Winning the prize wasn't half as exciting as doing the work itself.
-- Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize winner in physics (1963)

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.
-- Henry Ford

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses -- behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights. -- Muhammad Ali

... every rule in the book can be broken, except one -- be who you are,
and become all you were meant to be.... -- Sydney J. Harris, American Journalist

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
-- Bill Cosby

The Four Mistakes People Make & Ruin Their Chances

1. The mistake of stealing credit. Claiming credit for the work of others will rebound in very embarrassing ways.
2. The mistake of slandering others. If you wish to enjoy work, it's best to steer clear of the quicksand of gossip -- careless talk about and against people. Mistakes of the tongue destroy friendships, marriages and jobs.
3. The mistake of rumor-mongering. The best way to avoid this mistake is to keep your mouth shut most of the time and pleasant when you open it. If you can't say a good thing about a fellow, learn the great thrill that comes from saying nothing bad about him or her.
4. The mistake of too much pride. Pride has toppled individuals and empires more frequently that any other mistake since civilization began.

Criticism is something we can avoid easily --
by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. -- Aristotle

Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are we doing for others?
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cicero's "Six Mistakes Of Man"

1. The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.
2. The tendancy to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.
6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

Make the most of the best and the least of the worst. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea. -- Robert Half

Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. -- Oscar Wilde

The lawyer tries to take advantage of bad laws. The politician or rather the statesman tries to bring about the adoption of good laws. It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour.-- Thomas Jefferson

He who aims at nothing always hits his mark. -- Anonymous


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