Sidney Lumet Quotes

The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends.

If you don't measure yourself by achievement, how are you going to set achievement levels for other people?

My measure of success is whether I'm fulfilling my mission.

Science and math are hard for everybody, and it's usually not a matter or being born gifted at it or not. It's hard work, but it can be a lot of fun!

You know when you've had a good game, and you know when you could have done better.

It's much nicer to be praised than to be damned. But you have to have a certain sense of your own priorities and ideas about what works and what doesn't because otherwise, if you're just looking for eternal validation all the time, you can be motivated by the wrong things and I don't think it's as personally satisfying in your own work.

It's hard to shake a stick at success.

I think everyone is their harshest critic, but I strive for excellence as much as I can because I think it shows.

I think the older I've gotten the more, like most people, my appreciation shifts towards things that are very difficult, where you see people who have put in tremendous hours and hours of commitment.

Philosophy itself cannot but benefit from our disputes, for if our conceptions prove true, new achievements will be made; if false, their refutation will further confirm the original doctrines.

I respect my work. But also I think it's very superficial.

It's funny because sometimes one doesn't actually consider these things for one's self until one's in a situation like this press conferece where one has to kind of think about it.

Nothing in this life worth achieving is easy, nor is it impossible.

I intend to judge things for myself; to judge wrongly, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all.

Sometimes simple things are the most difficult things to achieve.

No one seemed able to look at themselves, coolly, from the outside. Their reality was all that could be seen in the light cast ahead by their own wishful thinking.

But I think the Great DiMaggio would be proud of me today.

If you think in positive terms, you will achieve positive results.

It's very difficult for me to evaluate my own stuff.

Does any woman ever count the grains of her harvest and say: Good enough? Or does one always think of what more one might have laid in, had the labor been harder, the ambition more vast, the choices more sage?

When you win a race like this the feeling is very, very good. There have been times when I have been flat-out to finish sixth, but you can't see that from the outside. In 1980 I finished three or four times in seventh place. I pushed like mad, yet everyone was gathered around the winner and they were thinking that I was just trundling around. But that's motor racing. So in fact the only thing you can judge in this sport is the long term. You can judge a career or a season, but not one race.

You know, I really don't think you learn from teachers. You learn from work. I think what you learn, really, is how to be- you have to be your own toughest critic, and you only learn that from work, from seeing work.

Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me.

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgement of your existence.

Thinking is difficult and sometimes unpleasant.