Cesare Pavese Quotes

One of the great undiscovered joys of life comes from doing everything one attempts to the best of one's ability. The smallest task, well done, becomes a miracle of achievement.

It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

I don't teach kids to be No. 1. Organizations and people that tell you you have to be No. 1; that's not it. You don't have to be No. 1. What I teach is to be as good as you can be. Use what you have and be as good as you can be. That's all you can do, anyway.

I always want to grow and top myself.

He tries to show each person how much they are capable of achieving.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you.

Every man who can be a first-rate something -- as every man can be who is a man at all -- has no right to be a fifth-rate something; for a fifth-rate something is not better than a first-rate nothing.

Achieve some perfection [excellence] yourself, so that you may not fall into sorrow by seeing the perfection in others.

Dedicate yourself to expressing your best.

Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.

I think most people can do a whole lot more if they just try.

Be the best of whatever you are.

My hunger is not for success, it is for excellence. Because when you attain excellence, success just naturally follows.

If God simply handed us everything we want, He'd be taking from us our greatest prize - the job of accomplishment

If a man achieves worldly success and does not blend into his life a program of self-improvement to bring about a sensible balance, he no doubt will end up as a failure.

Life's greatest adventure is in doing one's level best.

Every man who would do anything well, must come to it from a higher ground.

You cannot take credit for your talents. It is what you do with them that counts.

Success is about having. Excellence is about Being!

originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

I was never at my best when I was at my worst. When I did do good stuff in the past, it was because I was able to transcend the parts of my being that weren't healthy.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

What you become is what counts.

I can't tell you if one day I'll be standing up there with an Oscar or directing, but I am going to be the best human being I possibly can.

We may win when we lose, if we have done what we can; for by so doing we have made real at least some part of that finished product in whose fabrication we are most concerned: ourselves.