Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes

Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

My calculus teacher would send me home every weekend with 400 problems to solve. At the time, I felt it was so strict and demanding, but now I realize that the workload instilled in me a sense of discipline, and showed me that even if I wasn't inherently skilled at something, I could be, with enough dedication and practice.

We have to put in our time every day to try and achieve and learn so that we can develop our talents and each of you, thank goodness, have special talents; each of you are special persons.

I have always been guided by striving to show the best that I could. That is what kept me going in tennis and it is the same now.

Sometimes it seems that we are successful only because we have not tried hard enough for our best. We do the hard thing, and one day we succeed, and many things are made plain to us.

Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose. Life is a learning process and you have to try to learn what's best for you. Let me tell you, life is not fun when you're banging your head against a brick wall all the time.

You do the best you can with what's thrown at you, then you try again.

I think the attitude I was trying to learn myself was to really try hard, to give a great effort, to really care, and to let the results go where they are going to go. But at the same time, I don't have to be happy, and I shouldn't be happy, with less than my best.

It's inspiring for me to know that you've got to step up your game.

It's always something that's going to be a part of me. It's the reason why I work so hard each and every day. It's the reason I come to work dedicated to become the best that I can be. Nothing's going to come easy in life, and I've learned a lot of lessons, some the hard way, and I think just the things that I've been through have helped mold me into the person I am and what (is in) my future and that's continuing to do things the right way.

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.

Where I am today... I still have my ups and downs, but I take it one day at a time and I just hope that I can be the best that I can possibly be, not only for myself, but also young people that are out there today that need someone to look up to.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

Change takes effort. And the reality is, most people don't want to put in effort to better their life.

All you can do is the best you can do.

I have always worked hard, and seeing so many Icelanders make tremendous efforts to cope with difficult tasks and decisions inspires me.

As long as you try your best, that is all that matters. You don't have to be the fastest runner or top of the class.

It ended up being a very good thing, because they finally started writing for the character, and I realized that you have to go to work with a purpose. I learned from the experience and then moved on.

As I said this year, I didn't try to put any pressure on me by setting high goals or anything, I just want to make sure that every single time I'm out there on the court I do my best, I give 100%, and see where it's going to end up next year.

Learning how to work and learning how to fail is important.

The best part of learning any profession, when you're really going through those huge stretching escalated times of learning and energy, is when you want to do it so much.

Business is about being the best that you can be, and there are always glowing examples of people that we can all learn from.

When I was a waiter, I wanted to be the best waiter I could be and worked to be better at it every day.

The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.