Meaningful Accomplishments Quotes

Anything truly worthwhile does not come easy. If it did, it would not be all that worthwhile.

Activity is not achievement. It is not enough to rush about beginning a lot of things and keeping busy. A well-spent life is one that rounds out what it has begun.

Greatness consists not in the holding of some future office, but really consists in doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life.

I'd rather fail at something important than succeed at something trivial.

I don't want the iPod to be my defining thing.

I think that if I was only known for who I was as a football player and only that, it just would have been a tragedy.

I do lots - I've always felt that the idea when you're on your deathbed is, you know, to do lots of different - to say that you've done lots of different interesting things not, you know, how expensive a lining you can get for your coffin, you know.

Goals achieved with little effort are seldom worthwhile or lasting.

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.

Do not let your grand ambitions stand in the way of small but meaningful accomplishments.

The only big life challenge I think I'm worried about is a mid-life crisis because I've done so little. I think if people who've lived normal lives have mid-life crises and buy motorbikes, what is a man who's done nothing?

Having a bunch of medals and badges doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve achieved anything, you’ve got to do something beyond yourself to make a difference in life. Seek to be consequential in whatever you do.

What is success anyway? Is success about making the most money? No. Money, for the most part, turns people into jerks.

I guess I worry about weird existential things, like how do we spend our final act. This is a very emotional question. I can't answer it without crying. I think, You're 56 years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do now that is as meaningful as that? I don't know the answer yet.

I just wanted to do something that had some meaning that I can look back and be proud of, that my family can look back and be proud of.

I wish I could just relax sometimes and make some money, but I always feel like I have to prove some kind of big, profound point.

If you've built your identity only on your professional accolades and awards, what is going to be left of your legacy when those trophies tarnish and those records get broken? The Great Ones understand the importance of being well-rounded.

Still, accomplishment is unreliable. "Succeeding," whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there's the very real danger that "succeeding" will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.

I feel sorry for the person who can't get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile.

It's a common misconception that money is every entrepreneur's metric for success. It's not, and nor should it be.

When I get to my deathbed, I don't want to take my last breath and say, Well, how glorious. I've left the world my acting credits. I won't even think that.

We are material creatures who spend much of our lives on material pursuits (even building a cathedral or writing a novel requires stone and mortar or paper and ink).