Julian Barnes Quotes

The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit.

I am a believer in people succeeding on merit.

Balance is if you try hard, you work hard then the rewards are in balance with what you put in and what is available.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

You've got to earn it; you're not just handed anything in life. That's why no one starts out as a perfect master.

Success - To rise from the illusion of pursuit to the disillusion of possession.

With hard work, living a good life, you can do anything. You will be rewarded for that.

Just as at the Olympic games it is not the handsomest or strongest men who are crowned with victory but the successful competitors, so in life it is those who act rightly who carry off all the prizes and rewards.

One of the greatest rewards for doing can be the chances it gives to do some more - even better.

Is there anything in life so disenchanting as achievement?

Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour.

We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

I don't think success is harmful, as so many people say. Rather, I believe it indispensable to talent, if for nothing else than to increase the talent.

Most awards, you know, they don't give you unless you go and get them - did you know that? Terribly discouraging.

I love awards, especially if I get them.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

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

Don't work for recognition, but do work worthy of recognition.

To me, success is seeing that justice is done.

The fruit of your own hard work is the sweetest.

I've learned that getting what you want gives you a pretty high batting average, and leaves you plenty to struggle for.

When someone gets a success, and we, too, have done good work and sometimes even better work than the person who has just triumphed, we wonder: 'Why did success pass me by?'

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

What is the point of competing for a trophy if everyone gets a trophy?