Home Patience and Perseverance Index

Also see Success and Failure, Luck and That's Life.

Stubborn or Firm?

Stubbornness we deprecate,
Firmness we condone.
The former is our neighbor's trait,
The latter is our own.

Lemonade

If life give you lemons, make lemonade;
If life gives you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys.
But if life gives you a truckload of hand grenades...
maybe someone's trying to tell you something!

If at first you don't succeed...

Don't Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
When you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When cares are pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must,
but don't you quit!

Life is strange with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won if he stuck it out

Don't you give up though the pace seems slow,
You might succeed with another blow,
Often the goal is nearer than
It ever seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup,
And, he learned too late, with a groan and frown,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
You never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So, stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worse that you must not quit.

Try, Try Again

'Tis a lesson you should heed...
Try, try again.
If at first you don't succeed
Try, try again.
Then your courage should appear,
For if you will only persevere,
You will conquer every fear.
Try, try again.

It Couldn't Be Done

(Edgar Guest)

Somebody said it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing and he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one has ever done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing and he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

Persistence

(Calvin Coolidge)

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.