Persist Quotes

1. "The Historian and the Man of Science alike may be said to traffic with the dead. Cuvier has imparted flesh and motion and appetites to the defunct Megatherium, whilst the living ears of M.M. Michelet and Renan, of Mr. Carlyle and the Brothers Grimm, have heard the bloodless cries of the vanished and given them voices. I myself, with the aid of the imagination, have worked a little in that line, have ventriloquised, have lent my voice to, and mixt my life with, those past voices and lives whose resuscitation in our own lives as warnings, as examples, as the life of the past persisting in us, is the business of every thinking man and woman."
Author: A.S. Byatt

2. "Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way."
Author: Alan Wilson Watts

3. "One of the strongest and most persistent elements in national development has been that inheritance of political traditions and usages which the new settlers brought with them."
Author: Albert Bushnell Hart

4. "It is likely that libraries will carry on and survive, as long as we persist in lending words to the world that surrounds us, and storing them for future readers."
Author: Alberto Manguel

5. "There is great danger in this Golden Mean, one of whose main objects is to steer clear of shipwreck, Scylla being as fatal as Charybdis. No, this lofty and equable attitude is worse than wrong unless it derives from striking the balance between two very distant opposites. One of the worst perils of the present time is that, in the reaction against ignorant bigotry, people no longer dare to make up their minds about anything. The very practice, which the A?A? so strongly and persistently advocates, tends to make people feel that any positive attitude or gesture is certainly wrong, whatever may be right. They forget that the opposite may, within the limit of the universe of discourse, amount to nothing.[....]Of course, in no case does the Golden Mean advise hesitating, trimming, hedging, compromising; the very object of ensuring an exact balance in your weapon is that its blow may be clean and certain."
Author: Aleister Crowley

6. "Prayer [is] the quiet, persistent living of our life of desire and faith in the presence of our God."
Author: Andrew Murray

7. "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
Author: Carl Sagan

8. "What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]"
Author: Carl Sagan

9. "Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose."
Author: Carol Shields

10. "Only if you are afraid of looking foolish, and I would have looked far more foolish if I persisted with an erroneous belief.' Eragon said.Why, little one, you just said something wise!'Saphira teased."
Author: Christopher Paolini

11. "We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence."
Author: Cornel West

12. "And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107)."
Author: Cornel West

13. "Embrace curiosity, be open, playful, and persistent."
Author: Debra Kaye

14. "So abased, so monotonous is everything that meets the eye, that when the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil. Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, welling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life."
Author: E.M. Forster

15. "Men credited with all kinds of ability, talent, brains and know how, including the ability to see into the future, frequently have nothing more than the courage to keep everlastingly at what they set out to do. They have that one great quality that is worth more than all the rest put together. They simply will not give up! When a man makes up his mind to do something then it's only a matter of time. Staying with time take bulldog persistence. This seems to be the entrance examination to success - lasting success -- of any kind!"
Author: Earl Nightingale

16. "They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor. (Eric Hoffer 1902-1983)"
Author: Eric Hoffer

17. "What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now. The philosopher, of all people, must, I think, be aware of the tension between what he claims to achieve and the reality in which he finds himself."
Author: Hans Georg Gadamer

18. "If you want Allah to be persistent in granting you the thing you love, then be persistent in doing the things he loves."
Author: Imam Ahmad

19. "The tender June day persisted, refusing to die. Each pulse of light was fainter and more exquisite than the last, as if bidding farewell to the earth, full of love and regret."
Author: Irène Némirovsky

20. "Cada período del desarrollo humano, Susan, tiene su tipo particular de conflicto, sus problemas distintos que, aparentemente sólo pueden resolverse por la fuerza. Y jamás, por decepcionante que esto sea, la fuerza resuelve el problema. En su lugar, éste persiste a través de una serie de conflictos y se desvanece por sí solo... ¿cómo dice la frase?, no con un estallido, sino con su susurro, a medida que el ambiente económico y social cambia. Y entonces, nuevo problema y nueva serie de guerras. Un ciclo, al parecer, sin fin."
Author: Isaac Asimov

21. "As we look over the list of the early leaders of the republic, Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, and others, we discern that they were all men who insisted upon being themselves and who refused to truckle to the people. With each succeeding generation, the growing demand of the people that its elective officials shall not lead but merely register the popular will has steadily undermined the independence of those who derive their power from popular election. The persistent refusal of the Adamses to sacrifice the integrity of their own intellectual and moral standards and values for the sake of winning public office or popular favor is another of the measuring rods by which we may measure the divergence of American life from its starting point."
Author: James Truslow Adams

22. "But maybe the Charm Bracelets understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing, I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar."
Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

23. "Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return."
Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

24. "I think I'm seen as trustworthy. I'm seen as having determination and persistence, and I'm seen as having a capacity to reach achievable answers to difficult issues."
Author: John Howard

25. "Persistent ill-humour is all too clear an indication that someone is living contrary to his[her] intended purpose."
Author: José Ortega Y Gasset

26. "The locust continuesto devour the worldHunger persistsLove lurches onlisting to starboardlike a ship in a bottleHuman longing goes onLoneliness a curseInnocence persistsIgnorance persists"
Author: Lawrence Ferlinghetti

27. "Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation. I found nothing."
Author: Leo Tolstoy

28. "Josiah said that only humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind. (...) So they moved with the snow, became part of the snowstorm which drifted up against the trees and fences. And when they died, frozen solid against a fence, with the snow drifted around their heads? "Ah, Tayo," Josiah said, "the wind convinced them they were the ice."
Author: Leslie Marmon Silko

29. "Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds."
Author: Malcolm Gladwell

30. "Don't knock the power of a pest," Leif said. "Persistance and stubborness can be useful in many situations."
Author: Maria V. Snyder

31. "If these laws [in the Bible] belonged to any other ancient culture we would approach them very differently. We need not bother to reject the code of Hammurabi. Presumably it is because Moses is still felt to make some claim on us that this project of discrediting his law is persisted in with such energy. The unscholarly character of the project may derive from the supposed familiarity of the subject."
Author: Marilynne Robinson

32. "Mientras algo exista, la nada es imposible. De hecho, es la nada la que no puede persistir. La nada da paso a algo. La nada que precedió al Big Bang fue erradicada. Nada se convirtió en algo."
Author: Michael Grant

33. "Why do you want to do this?" he asked curiously. "Why is this woman so important to you?"Saint-Germain blinked in surprise. "Have you ever loved anyone?" he asked."Yes," Tamnuz said cautiously, "I had a consort once, Inanna...""But did you love her? Truly love her?"The Green Man remained silent."Did she mean more to you than life itself?" Saint-Germain persisted."They do not love that do not show their love," Shakespeare murmured very softly.The French immortal stepped closer to the Elder. "I love my Jeanne," he said simply. "I must go to her.""Even though it will cost you everything?" Tamnuz persisted, as if the idea was incomprehensible."Yes. Without Joan, everything I have is worthless.""Even your immortality?""Especially my immortality." Gone were the banter and the jokes. This was a Saint-Germain whom neither Shakespeare nor Palamedes had ever seen before. "I love her," he said,"
Author: Michael Scott

34. "Edison was by far the most successful and, probably, the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation. Everything he achieved was the result of persistent trials and experiments often performed at random but always attesting extraordinary vigor and resource. Starting from a few known elements, he would make their combinations and permutations, tabulate them and run through the whole list, completing test after test with incredible rapidity until he obtained a clue. His mind was dominated by one idea, to leave no stone unturned, to exhaust every possibility."
Author: Nikola Tesla

35. "Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life. Inland, the prospect alters."
Author: Noah Lukeman

36. "Waiting is a form of passive persistence."
Author: Ogwo David Emenike

37. "In the 1980s, research on post traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans was regarded as important, noble, and useful. When the same researchers looked at the same problem in children who had been sexually abused, a tremendous controversy ensued a controversy that persists to this day. There were those who disputed the extent and severity of the sexual abuse that had been uncovered."
Author: Patrick J. Carnes

38. "What matters, instead, is whether we are able to help her develop a very different set of qualities, a list that includes persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit, and self-confidence. Economists refer to these as noncognitive skills, psychologists call them personality traits, and the rest of us sometimes think of them as character."
Author: Paul Tough

39. "Why do they make things so complicated?""So that those who have the responsibility for understanding can understand.," he said. "Imagine if everyone went around transforming lead into gold. Gold would lose its value.""It's those who are persistent, and willing to study things deeply, who achieve the Master Work."
Author: Paulo Coelho

40. "It's a funny word, persistence. It means not giving up, but it also means just passing on through time."
Author: Questlove

41. "Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity."
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

42. "Gerontologists studying the aging process find increasing evidence that most of us will age with a fair degree of success. There's far less institutionalization and disability than one might have guessed. While the size of social networks shrink with age, the quality of the relationships improves. There are types of cognitive skills that improve in old age (these are related to social intelligence and to making good strategic use of facts, rather than merely remembering them easily). The average elderly individual thinks his or her health is above average, and takes pleasure from that. And most important, the average level of happiness increases in old age; fewer negative emotions occur and, when they do, they don't persist as long. Connected to this, brain-imaging studies show that negative images have less of an impact, and positive images have more of an impact on brain metabolism in older people, as compared to young."
Author: Robert M. Sapolsky

43. "I have been so struck by the mettle of the men who founded this country and wrote the Constitution. What unbelievable persistence and integrity. I wonder if any of us would have the attention span required to forge a whole new world. I wish we did."
Author: Rosanne Cash

44. "Your lingering presence erodes me. Heartbeat by heartbeat. Cell by aging cell. Washing away any sense of self I ever had. Intruding into a nothingness I've struggled to find the pieces to fill. A jar filled with stones, piled with pebbles, topped with sand, only to be left with the knowledge that water, with enough time and persistence, has the power to wash it all away.Your name is on my lips. Frozen. A familiar cadence of syllables that once soothed me. A name I can't speak. Can't think of.Not on this shore, at our lake. Not on this day. When only a year ago, with a foreshadowing that is now ice in my veins, you stood next to me, in this jacket, your hand in mine, so warm, and stared out at this expanse and whispered in awe, "This is what a cold lake looks like."
Author: S.A. McAuley

45. "It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one."
Author: Socrates

46. "Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent."
Author: Steve Martin

47. "Achieving the good life is more a matter of being than of doing or giving. It calls for intense self-scrutiny, a relentless honesty about one's motives, and a persistent feeling that we are no better—and perhaps worse—than those we are trying to help."
Author: Sydney J. Harris

48. "First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?"
Author: Thomas Merton

49. "Some cities, like wrapped boxes under Christmas trees, conceal unexpected gifts, secret delights. Some cities will always remain wrapped boxes, containers of riddles never to be solved, nor even to be seen by vacationing visitors, or, for that matter, the most inquisitive, persistent travelers."
Author: Truman Capote

50. "That's one way of looking at it. I prefer to look at it another way—which is that if they are persistent enough, even tiny drops of water, over time, can change the rock forever. And it will never change back."
Author: Veronica Roth

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