Lydia Davis Quotes

Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

Thoroughness characterizes all successful men. Genius is the art of taking infinite pains. All great achievement has been characterized by extreme care, infinite painstaking, even to the minutest detail.

If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it, he will find it.

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.

Work hard, be steady, and have faith in the Lord. Set to work.

Your big picture will never be a masterpiece if you ignore the tiny brushstrokes. You're trying so hard to be successful that true success is eluding you.

Greatness comes with patience.

One must work, nothing but work, and one must have patience.

'Tis true there is much to be done, . . . but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects, for constant dropping wears away stones . . . and little strokes fell great oaks, as Poor Richard says. . . .

Diligence which, as it avails in all things, is also of the utmost moment in pleading causes. Diligence is to be particularly cultivated by us; it is to be constantly exerted; it is capable of effecting almost everything.

Slow and steady wins the race. I feel like I know in my bones if we're doing a good job and continue to do a good job, the ratings will come.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

From my father, I learned the importance of working sincerely at things to which I had committed myself, and to persevere untiringly even in the face of little progress.

The hardest thing for me is to be patient and realize that it's not all going to happen right now. I just have to keep digging away, digging away. Just keep working on my game.

Whatever I was going into, whether it was going to be chorus or history or astronomy or whatever, do it right. Be a professional. Don't just do a half baked job. Do everything correctly. Get down. Learn the details of what you're going to do.

I am not a person to quit. If something needs harder work then I will put my head down and do it.

I have always said, 'Never stop work.' Continue work and sort out issues simultaneously.

It's hard to remain patient when it seems so debilitating to do so. The balance comes with staying ambitious while being patient.

You don't achieve success by "taking it easy" or "working on it later." You achieve it thru persistence and hard work.

. . . Wait, my child, wait and work on. Patience, patience. . . . .

There's only one way to make a beginning, and that is to begin; and begin with hard work, and patience, prepared for all the disappoint­ment s.

Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.

Work is doing it. Discipline is doing it every day. Diligence is doing it well every day.

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