Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment.

So long as there is breath in me, that long I will persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles on success; if I persist long enough I will win.

Determination is the thing on which you can depend. It plods along without a swing, but gets there in the end.

Never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.

I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up.

The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it. ... You start out lowly and humble and you carefully try to learn an accretion of little things that help you get there.

It's the courage to stay with something long enough to succeed at it.

Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

Never give up! And remember, determination is as important as talent.

Total commitment. You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

I'll never lose the sense of being an underdog.

For the last three years that I have tried, people are laughing at me and saying that I was trying too hard. And my answer is yeah, I really am trying hard.

Maybe I don't have the patience to make a virtue of necessity - the patience to carry something all the way through, and to actually say something. Lately, the songs are more jagged and they don't really lend themselves to that. I just take it one bit at a time.

In every human endeavor, persistence is everything.

Endurance is frequently a form of indecision.

No matter how impossible this war, I shall fight to win. Whatever I have to do, I will do.

Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat.

Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is persistence. They're willing to spend more time accomplishing a task and to persevere in the face of many difficult odds. There's a very positive relationship between people's ability to accomplish any task and the time they're willing to spend on it.

Oh that I may never loiter on my heavenly journey.

I keep my feet on the ground, keep dedicated, keep focused, underestimate nobody and obviously you need the ability, talent and everything else that goes with it.

Mackay's Moral: If you are persistent, you will get it. If you are consistent, you will keep it.

Just put one foot in front of the other and don't worry about the length of the path. Once you get on that path, and the longer you stay on it, there eventually will come a time when you will not turn back.

I do not see why I should e’er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true.

We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.