Quotes About Motivation

A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.

I am often asked why I write, and I don't know really--I just want to.

It's important to try to write when you are in the wrong mood or when the weather is wrong.

I am often asked why I write, and I don't know really—I just like it." —John Ashbery

The worst mistake a boss can make is not to say 'Well done'.

My work is to reach people with ideas, hopes, dreams, encouragement, insight, and revelation. That's what an actor wants to do.

To go where you're wishing you could go, first you must tie your shoes and step off the porch.

Keeping the notion of dignity front and center creates a workplace where people want to be.

I have never done anything in my life that did not have a purpose, usually hidden, sometimes even from myself.

He who challenges me, praises me!

The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it's you I'm addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction. You've read me this far, then? Even this far? For what discreditable motive? How is it you don't go to a movie, watch TV, stare at a wall, play tennis with a friend, make amorous advances to the person who comes to your mind when I speak of amorous advances? Can nothing surfeit, saturate you, turn you off? Where's your shame?

The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it's you I'm addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction. You've read me this far, then? Even this far? For what discreditable motive? How is it you don't go to a movie, watch TV, stare at a wall, play tennis with a friend, make amorous advances to the person who comes to your mind when I speak of amorous advances? Can nothing surfeit, saturate you, turn you off? Where's your shame?

The best lack all conviction while the worst are full passionate intensity

Sitting around miserable all day won't make you any happier.

He is a self-made man and worships his creator.

The only value comes if you have something positive to do, and it's important to match both your own interests and abilities to what you decide to work on. I

But discoveries are what usually egg us on. Not finding anything would be very bad indeed.

Economics graduate students are far more likely to free-ride than other students.

To set high goals, to have almost unattainable aspirations, to imbue people with the belief that they can be achieved—these are as important as the balance sheet, perhaps more

It is not strength, but desire, that governs the world.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

But the egoist has no ideals, for the knowledge that his ideals are only his ideals, frees him from their domination. He acts for his own interest, not for the interest of ideals.

The man that takes up religion for the world will throw away religion for the world.

No choice is ever made on the basis of logic; the logic is fabricated around the impulse, the initial desire which is innate and incontrovertible.