90 Top Quotes From Grit
Grit, authored by psychologist and MacArthur Fellow Angela Duckworth, delves into the power of perseverance and passion in the pursuit of long-term goals. Drawing on extensive research and personal experiences, Duckworth unveils that talent alone does not guarantee success; rather, it is the combination of passion and unwavering perseverance – what she calls "grit" – that propels individuals towards exceptional achievements.
Through captivating anecdotes of high achievers in various fields, from sports to business, Duckworth demonstrates how the willingness to overcome challenges, learn from failures, and stay committed to a purpose leads to extraordinary outcomes. Grit challenges the conventional belief that success is solely determined by innate abilities and offers an inspiring perspective on the significance of cultivating resilience and determination. This groundbreaking book motivates readers to embrace grit as a crucial factor in reaching their full potential, making it a must-read for anyone aspiring to make their mark in the world. (Grit Summary).
Grit Quotes
"Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.”
"There are no shortcuts to excellence. Developing real expertise, figuring out really hard problems, it all takes time―longer than most people imagine"
".Grit is about working on something you care about so much that you're willing to stay loyal to it. it's doing what you love, but not just falling in love―staying in love.”
"Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” (Meaning)
"It soon became clear that doing one thing better and better might be more satisfying than staying an amateur at many different things:”
"I won’t just have a job; I’ll have a calling. I’ll challenge myself every day. When I get knocked down, I’ll get back up. I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I’ll strive to be the grittiest.”
"As much as talent counts, effort counts twice.”
"Interests are not discovered through introspection. Instead, interests are triggered by interactions with the outside world. The process of interest discovery can be messy, serendipitous, and inefficient. This is because you can't really predict with certainty what will capture your attention and what won't...Without experimenting, you can't figure out which interests will stick, and which won't.”
"Grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity. The maturation story is that we develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older.”
"I learned a lesson I’d never forget. The lesson was that, when you have setbacks and failures, you can’t overreact to them.”
"Yes, but the main thing is that greatness is doable. Greatness is many, many individual feats, and each of them is doable.”
"Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn't.”
"When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can’t be found, you guarantee they won”
"It isn't suffering that leads to hopelessness. It's suffering you think you can't control.”
"At its core, the idea of purpose is the idea that what we do matters to people other than ourselves.”
"I have a feeling tomorrow will be better is different from I resolve to make tomorrow better.”
"Most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary.”
"One form of perseverance is the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday. So,”
"Stop reading so much and go think.”
"Passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening.”
"No whining. No complaining. No excuses.”
"Well okay, that didn’t go so well, but I guess I will just carry on.’ ”
"Staying on the treadmill is one thing, and I do think it’s related to staying true to our commitments even when we’re not comfortable. But getting back on the treadmill the next day, eager to try again, is in my view even more reflective of grit. Because when you don’t come back the next day—when you permanently turn your back on a commitment—your effort plummets to zero. As a consequence, your skills stop improving, and at the same time, you stop producing anything with whatever skills you have.”
"Our vanity, our self-love, promotes the cult of the genius,” Nietzsche said. “For if we think of genius as something magical, we are not obliged to compare ourselves and find ourselves lacking. . . . To call someone ‘divine’ means: ‘here there is no need to compete.”
"In other words, we want to believe that Mark Spitz was born to swim in a way that none of us were and that none of us could. We don’t want to sit on the pool deck and watch him progress from amateur to expert. We prefer our excellence fully formed. We prefer mystery to mundanity.”
"Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what you do.”
"When I am around people,” Kat wrote, “my heart and soul radiate with the awareness that I am in the presence of greatness. Maybe greatness unfound, or greatness underdeveloped, but the potential or existence of greatness nevertheless. You never know who will go on to do good or even great things or become the next great influencer in the world—so treat everyone like they are that person.”
"Grit depends on a different kind of hope. It rests on the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. "I have a feeling tomorrow will be better" is different from "I resolve to make tomorrow better.”
"There’s a vast amount of research on what happens when we believe a student is especially talented. We begin to lavish extra attention on them and hold them to higher expectations. We expect them to excel, and that expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
"Have a fierce resolve in everything you do.” “Demonstrate determination, resiliency, and tenacity.” “Do not let temporary setbacks become permanent excuses.” And, finally, “Use mistakes and problems as opportunities to get better—not reasons to quit.”
"When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can’t be found, you guarantee they won’t.”
"Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. With”
"A fixed mindset about ability leads to pessimistic explanations of adversity, and that, in turn, leads to both giving up on challenges and avoiding them in the first place. In contrast, a growth mindset leads to optimistic ways of explaining adversity, and that, in turn, leads to perseverance and seeking out new challenges that will ultimately make you even stronger.”
"To be gritty is to resist complacency.”
"Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”
"Do not let temporary setbacks become permanent excuses.”
"The highly accomplished were paragons of perseverance.”
"You can quit. But you can’t quit until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other “natural” stopping point has arrived. You must, at least for the interval to which you’ve committed yourself, finish whatever you begin.”
"Trying to do things they can't yet do, failing, and learning what they need to do differently is exactly the way that experts practice.”
"The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy.”
"With everything perfect,” Nietzsche wrote, “we do not ask how it came to be.” Instead, “we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic.”
"Of his early attempts at writing, Irving has said, “Most of all, I rewrote everything. I began to take my lack of talent seriously.”
"Being a ""promising beginner"" is fun, but being an actual expert is infinitely more gratifying.”
"You can't simply will yourself to like things, either. As Jeff Bezos has observed, 'One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves.”
"Common sequence is to start out with a relatively self-oriented interest, then learn self-disciplined practice, and, finally, integrate that work with an other-centered purpose.”
"Interests are not discovered through introspection. Instead, interests are triggered by interactions with the outside world.”
"Optimistic young adults stay healthier throughout middle age and, ultimately, live longer than pessimists.”
"But if, instead, you define genius as working toward excellence, ceaselessly, with every element of your being—then, in fact, my dad is a genius, and so am I, and so is Coates, and, if you’re willing, so are you.”
"What we accomplish in the marathon of life depends tremendously on our grit—our passion and perseverance for long-term goals.”
"The most important were challenges that exceeded current skills.”
"When it comes to how we fare in the marathon of life, effort counts tremendously.”
"The bottom line on culture and grit is: If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader, and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.”
"What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters. For most people, interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime.”
"People assume you have to have some special talent to do mathematics,” Sylvia has said. “They think you’re either born with it, or you’re not. But Rhonda and I keep saying, ‘You actually develop the ability to do mathematics. Don’t give up!”
"Staying on the treadmill is one thing, and I do think it’s related to staying true to our commitments even when we’re not comfortable. But getting back on the treadmill the next day, eager to try again, is in my view even more reflective of grit.”
"Most of us become more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm with life experience.”
"In the most general sense, talent is the sum of a person’s abilities—his or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character, and drive. It also includes his or her ability to learn and grow.” That”
"Interest is one source of passion. Purpose—the intention to contribute to the well-being of others—is another. The mature passions of gritty people depend on both.”
"There have been so many times in my career when I wanted to pack it in, when I wanted to give up and do something easier,” Rhonda told me. “But there was always someone who, in one way or another, told me to keep going. I think everyone needs somebody like that. Don’t you?”
"There’s a hard way to get grit and an easy way. The hard way is to do it by yourself. The easy way is to use conformity—the basic human drive to fit in—because if you’re around a lot of people who are gritty, you’re going to act grittier.”
"You must zero in on your weaknesses, and you must do so over and over again, for hours a day, week after month after year. To be gritty is to resist complacency. “Whatever it takes, I want to improve!” is a refrain of all paragons of grit, no matter their particular interest, and no matter how excellent they already are.”
"In our family, we live by the Hard Thing Rule. It has three parts. The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy.”
"It doesn’t really matter who it is, and it doesn’t even matter whether that purpose is related to what the child will end up doing. “What matters, ” Bill explained, “is that someone demonstrates that it’s possible to accomplish something on behalf of others.”
"A calling is not some fully formed thing that you find,” she tells advice seekers. “It’s much more dynamic. Whatever you do—whether you’re a janitor or the CEO—you can continually look at what you do and ask how it connects to other people, how it connects to the bigger picture, how it can be an expression of your deepest values.”
"Grit depends on a different kind of hope. It rests on the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. I have a feeling tomorrow will be better is different from I resolve to make tomorrow better. The hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with getting up again.”
"Over time, we learn life lessons we don't forget, and we adapt in response to the growing demands of our circumstances. Eventually, new ways of thinking and acting become habitual. There comes a day when we can hardly remember our immature former selves. We've adapted, those adaptations have become durable, and, finally, our identity - the sort of person we see ourselves to be - has evolved. We've matured.”
"You can, in fact, modify your self-talk, and you can learn to not let it interfere with you moving toward your goals. With practice and guidance, you can change the way you think, feel, and, most important, act when the going gets rough.”
"To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.”
"In very gritty people, most mid-level and low-level goals are, in some way or another, related to that ultimate goal. In contrast, a lack of grit can come from having less coherent goal structures.”
"Optimists are more satisfied with their marriages.”
"If you want to bring forth grit in your child, first ask how much passion and perseverance you have for your own life goals. Then ask yourself how likely it is that your approach to parenting encourages your child to emulate you. If”
"All my life, I’d seen what one person—my mother—could do to help many others. I’d witnessed the power of purpose.”
"The award goes to her because she has discovered that what we eventually accomplish may depend more on our passion and perseverance than on our innate talent.”
"Since novelty is what your brain craves, you’ll be tempted to move on to something new, and that could be what makes the most sense. However, if you want to stay engaged for more than a few years in any endeavor, you’ll need to find a way to enjoy the nuances that only a true aficionado can appreciate. “The old in the new is what claims the attention,” said William James. “The old with a slightly new turn.”
"You want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader, and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.”
"All of us, Terkel concluded, are looking for “daily meaning as well as daily bread . . . for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”
"A girl who is told repeatedly that she’s no genius ends up winning an award for being one.”
"Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They’d rather show the highlight of what they’ve become.”
"A clear, well-defined philosophy gives you the guidelines and boundaries that keep you on track,”
“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. With effort, talent becomes skill and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.”
"The most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary.”
"For the beginner, novelty is anything that hasn’t been encountered before. For the expert, novelty is nuance.”
"With everything perfect,"" Nietzsche wrote, ""we do not ask how it came to be."" Instead, ""we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic.”
"We are, by nature, neophiles.”
"A high level of performance is, in fact, an accretion of mundane acts.”
"Figure out when and where you’re most comfortable doing deliberate practice. Once you’ve made your selection, do deliberate practice then and there every day. Why? Because routines are a godsend when it comes to doing something hard. A”
"The separation of talent and skill,” Will Smith points out, “is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want to do things. Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.”
"It is therefore imperative that you identify your work as both personally interesting and, at the same time, integrally connected to the well-being of others.”
"Indeed, the calculated costs and benefits of passion and perseverance don’t always add up, at least in the short run. It’s often more “sensible” to give up and move on. It can be years or more before grit’s dividends pay off.”
"Talent counts, effort counts twice.”
"The first core value—We don’t whine—and its corresponding quote, courtesy of playwright George Bernard Shaw: “The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
"Interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime.”
"Encouragement during the early years is crucial because beginners are still figuring out whether they want to commit or cut bait."
"If you define genius as working toward excellence, ceaselessly, with every element of your being—then, in fact, my dad is a genius, and so am I, and so is Coates, and, if you’re willing, so are you.”
"Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They'd rather show the highlight of what they've become.”
"It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit.”
"So, why do we place such emphasis on talent? And why fixate on the extreme limits of what we might do when, in fact, most of us are at the very beginning of our journey, so far, far away from those outer bounds? And why do we assume that it is our talent, rather than our effort, that will decide where we end up in the very long run?”
"Grit has two components: passion and perseverance.”
"it isn't suffering that leads to hopelessness. It's suffering you think you can't control.”
"These stories of grit are one kind of data, and they complement the more systematic, quantitative studies I’ve done in places like West Point and the National Spelling Bee. Together, the research reveals the psychological assets that mature paragons of grit have in common. There are four. They counter each of the buzz-killers listed above, and they tend to develop, over the years.”
"Gettleman. Fireworks erupt in a blaze of glory but quickly fizzle, leaving just wisps of smoke and a memory of what was once spectacular. What Jeff’s journey suggests instead is passion”
― Quotes from the book Grit by Angela Duckworth
Grit Author
A leading psychologist and author, Angela Duckworth, has significantly contributed to our understanding of achievement and success through her pioneering research on grit. In her acclaimed book, "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance," Duckworth unravels the crucial role of passion and sustained effort in achieving long-term goals. Drawing on her own experiences as a teacher and researcher, she demystifies the myth that talent alone determines success and argues that grit, a combination of passion and perseverance, is the true predictor of achievement. Duckworth's work has profound implications not only for education but also for personal development and organizational performance. By providing actionable insights on how to cultivate grit in individuals, she inspires readers to embrace challenges, bounce back from failures, and pursue their passions with unwavering determination. Duckworth's research and engaging storytelling have sparked a global conversation on the nature of success and the qualities that truly drive excellence in various domains of life.
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
