Giles Duley Quotes

For a short time I was an assistant to a professional photographer, and I felt that my soul was not there. That is the stage when I decided to stay in London and do a graduate degree.

The only durable sense of success is if you've followed your calling.

I didn't want to come to the end of my career and think, 'What next?'

You've got to find a sweet spot where you skill meets your passion, meets your job.

Guilt's too strong a word, but there is this niggling worry that I'm a grown-up doing a childish job and it would be nice to do something more useful and to reach a number of people with an idea you think is important.

Set yourself earnestly to discover what you are made to do, and then give yourself passionately to the doing of it.

If you're just saying, hey, I'm doing this. I'm working to make money. I'm working to increase my status. If that's all there is, I think you will find out that it's meaningless.

I was a litigation lawyer, working in downtown Toronto. I was successful, yet I was very unfulfilled. I had the sense that I really wasn't living according to my values, and I didn't have the passion or sense of mission I was looking for.

My aim in life isn't so much the pursuit of happiness as the happiness of pursuit.

In an ideal world, nobody's work would be just about the money. People could pursue excellence in what they do, take pride in achievement, and derive meaning from knowing that their work improved the lives of others.

To find one's calling is perhaps not the easiest thing in the world, but probably the most important.

My hobbies just sort of gradually became my vocation.

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose.

I think people tend to fall into their careers sometimes, and maybe that's a lucky path to follow because you actually end up doing your purpose.

You will never fulfill your destiny doing work you despise.

I need to feel like the work I'm doing is not necessarily important, but meaningful, at least to me, because otherwise it just becomes a day job. It just becomes factory work and I get really frustrated.

I don't care about my personal acting career anymore. I'm done with it. After 10 years of making movies and doing better than I ever could have imagined, I sort of had to ask myself: 'What am I supposed to do with all of this success that I have had?'

I know I have the ability to do so much more than just stand in front of the camera the rest of my life.

When I had Mason, I was really ready to leave the business of acting, but still wanted to do work that I could control.

I love what I do, and I'm not doing anything either for money or for the sake of some unfulfilled ambition.

I think there's a lot to be said about just enjoying your work. It can be very contrived when people say their work is for the good of mankind.

I am a free man. I don't need to earn money. But I need to love what I do.

The character I play in Star Quality says acting is the be-all and end-all of her life. I'm not like that. I do enjoy working and I give every job my best shot but I never feel, What on Earth am I going to do now?

I envy people with dreams and passions, but I don't think that way. I still don't have a 'bliss' to follow. For people like me - I suspect that's most people - holding out for a 'dream' or a 'passion' is paralyzing. I just like having work I enjoy that feels meaningful. That's hard enough... but it's enough.

Asked to give advice to a 13-year-old girl about how to lead her life, I say find something you love to do. The goal shouldn't be accumulating money. It might be making changes in the world, or in your country.