Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

Where grows?--where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil.

Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.

The miracle of the seed and the soil is not available by affirmation; it is only available by labor.

All man has to do is cooperate with the big forces, the sun, the rain, the growing urge. Seeds sprout, stems grow, leaves spread in the sunlight. Man plants, weeds, cultivates and harvests. It sounds simple, and it is simple, with the simplicity of great truths.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done, and there's a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

If you don't back it up with performance and hard work, talking doesn't mean a thing.

Long ago I learned nothing gets done by just wishing it. You have to do it.

The reveries of the dreamer advance his hopes, but not their realization. One good hour of earnest work is worth them all.

you should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.

Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.

Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work.

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.

The more one does the more one can do.

No one ever accomplished anything great sitting down.

It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.

Better to toil blindly, beating every stone in turn for grains of gold, whether they contain any or not, than lie down in apathetic decay.

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.

A success is one who decided to succeed and worked. A failure is one who decided to succeed and wished.

The man who wants a garden fair, or small or very big, With flowers growing here and there, Must bend his back and dig. The things are mighty few on earth That wishes can attain. Whate'er we want of any worth We've got to work to gain. It matters not what goal you seek, It's secret here reposes: You've got to dig from week to week To get Results or Roses.

Very few people know how to work. Inspiration, everybody has inspiration. That's just hot air.

For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.

I would visualize things coming to me. It would just make me feel better. Visualization works if you work hard. That's the thing. You can't just visualize and go eat a sandwich.