Isak Dinesen Quotes

It wasn't until I had been writing on and off for maybe ten years that I started to establish any kind of routine, thought I couldn't put a finger on an exact date, and this routine relates simply to the aphorism 'How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.'

If you're running a 26-mile marathon, remember that every mile is run one step at a time. If you are writing a book, do it one page at a time. If you're trying to master a new language, try it one word at a time. There are 365 days in the average year. Divide any project by 365 and you'll find that no job is all that intimidating.

Remember that the most difficult tasks are consummated, not by a single explosive burst of energy or effort, but by the constant daily application of the best you have within you.

Tiny steps will get you to your goal months and months sooner. A little is better than a lot.

Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.

If you should put even a little on a little and should do this often, soon this would become big.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

If you do something every day a little, the end is going to be big.

Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.

People who accomplish big things did small things well.

I believe firmly in plodding. Productivity is more a matter of diligent, long-distance hiking than it is one-hundred-yard dashing. Doing a little bit now is far better than hoping to do a lot on the morrow. So redeem the fifteen minute spaces. Chip away at it.

A jug fills drop by drop.

One of the greatest resources people cannot mobilize themselves is that they try to accomplish great things. Most worthwhile achievements are the result of many little things done in a single direction.

It is not the straining for great things that is most effective; it is the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and better.

Plodding wins the race.

It was from them that I learned that hard work in stable surroundings could yield rewards, even if only in infinitesimally small increments.

Sometimes we make the process more complicated than we need to. We will never make a journey of a thousand miles by fretting about how long it will take or how hard it will be. We make the journey by taking each day step by step and then repeating it again and again until we reach our destination.

Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out.

Nothing happens overnight in this game.

For me, you have to prove yourself over 10, 12 or 15 years if you want to be among the best. Do that and then I will congratulate you.

I've been building slow, step by step.

The way to do a great deal is to keep on doing a little. The way to do nothing at all is to be continually resolving that you will do everything.

One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time," and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.

All good work is done the way ants do things: Little by little.