Quotes: Babe Ruth

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."  

–– Babe Ruth, nickname of George Herman "Babe" Ruth (1895-1948), American baseball player 

via: Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2007, p. 133.

Quotes: Gay Hendricks

Luck, insights, or breakthroughs are "a reward for not giving up." 

–– Gay Hendricks (b. 1945), American psychologist and writer 

Source: Gay Hendricks, Lindsay Tinker. The Third Rule of Ten. New York: Hay House, 2014; p. 235. 

via: Commonplace Book, 2024, 2025, p. 68.

Quotes: Amy Sherald

"I was broke for a very long time, but I always believed in myself and believed in the work and knew I had something special, Sherald recalled. "And so I always tell young artists, the world is full of quitters, so don't quit and you'll eventually rise to the top. And here I am, tada." 

–– Amy Sherald (b. 1973), American painter 

Source: Olivia Hampton. "Painter Amy Sherald asks: What is American?", https://www.kclu.org/arts-culture/2025-04-09/painter-amy-sherald-asks-what-is-american, April 9, 2025.

Quotes: Doris Lessing

"What I did have, which others perhaps didn't, was a capacity for sticking at it, which really is the point, not the talent at all. You have to stick at it."

–– Doris Lessing (1919-2013), Iranian born British-Zimbabwean novelist 

Quotes: unknown

"It doesn't matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop." 

–– unknown

Source: Instagram Flo and Frank

via: Striped notebook, 2016, p. 20.

Quotes: Ann Gillen

"You have to do work that's meaningful to you, and then you have to keep on doing it." 

–– Ann Gillen (b. 1935), American sculptor 

via: Sketchbook 33, 2023, p. 13.

Quotes: Patrick Modiano

"Every day, you have the feeling you are on the wrong track. This creates a strong urge to go back and follow a different path. It is important not to give in to this urge, but to keep going. It is a little like driving a car at night, in winter, on ice, with zero visibility." 

–– Patrick Modiano (b. 1945), French novelist 

via: Anvil Knapsack Sketchbook 2017, p. 3.

Quotes: Sandra Brownlee

"You have to be comfortable with uncertainty. You keep going and it becomes clear." 

–– Sandra Brownlee (b. 1948), Canadian visual artist, educator, and winner of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, 2014

via: Sketchbook 23, 2014, p. 44.

Quotes: Rainer Maria Rilke

"God speaks to each of us as he makes us, 

then walks with us silently out of the night. 

These are the words we dimly hear: 

You, sent out, beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing. 

Embody me. 

Flare up like flame 

and make big shadows that I can move in. 

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. 

Just keep going. No feeling is final. 

Don't let yourself lose me. 

Nearby is the country they call life. 

You will know it by its seriousness. 

Give me your hand."

Book of Hours I 59

–– Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist 

via: Sketchbook A, 2015, p. 23

Quotes: Thomas Edison

"Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." –– Thomas Edison