Quotes About Motivation

Do Your Best Work

In the hectic pace of the world today, there is no time for meditation, or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I'd put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he's motivated, in prison he can change his life.

All I had was to improve on their strategy [...] anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you're both engaged in the same business—you know they're doing something that you aren't.

Anytime you see someone more succesful than you are, the are doing something you aren't

So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.

CHAPTER 7 HUSTLER

I would cry out and make a fuss until I got what I wanted. I remember well how my mother asked me why I couldn't be a nice boy like Wilfred; but I would think to myself that Wilfred, for being so nice and quiet, often stayed hungry. So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.

Once he is motivated no one can change more completely than a person who has been at the bottom.

Hard work may pay off in the long run, but the benefits of laziness are immediate.

Those who lack faith and commitment live without purpose. They do not work for the sake of the goal but only for their own pleasure, to gain honor or money.

Stop wandering about! You aren't likely to read your own notebooks, or ancient histories, or the anthologies you've collected to enjoy in your old age. Get busy with life's purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue-if you care for yourself at all-and do it while you can.

The man of ambition thinks to find his good in the operations of others; the man of pleasure in his own sensations; but the man of understanding in his own actions.

If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, 'I awake to do the work of a man.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, I have to go to work - as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for - the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?

Stop drifting. You're not going to re-read your Brief Comments, your Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the commonplace books you saved for your old age. Sprint for the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can.

Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it.

In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie under the blankets and keep myself warm? But this is more pleasant. Do you exist then to take your pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion?

Learn to ask of all actions, "Why are they doing that?" Starting with your own.

73. When you have done a good act and another has received it, why do you look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: "I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?

Thou must also take heed of another kind of wandering, for they are idle in their actions, who toil and labour in this life, and have no certain scope to which to direct all their motions, and desires.

But Marcus Aurelius knows that what the heart is full of, the man will do.

I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?

When it's hard to get out of bed in the morning, remind yourself: I am rising to resume my life's work. How can I be unhappy when I have another opportunity to do what I was born to do?