I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.
One of the things I believe strongly in is developing institutions - legal, press, bureaucracies, academies - that are rooted in the pursuit of impartial truth. That aren't simply just bent to partisan ends or are corrupted for the powerful or for other ulterior motives.
One of the things that happens in my house on the holidays is after dessert, we sit down to a very ambitious men-versus-women game of Trivial Pursuit. It's brutal. And there's a trophy.
At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!
Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.
I know that if the peace movement takes its message boldly to the Negro people a powerful force can be secured in pursuit of the greatest goal of all mankind. And the same is true of labor and the great democratic sections of our population.
Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn't want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist.
I and my colleagues here have been engaged in the pursuit of knowledge.
Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
I used to hunt as a child but gave up the chase in my 'Ho Ho Ho Chi-Minh, we shall fight and we shall win' chanting and marching days - by which time I had come to share Oscar Wilde's feelings about 'the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.'
Pursuit of perfection is futile. Instead, I prioritize and often realize goals or tasks I've been aiming for just aren't that important.
In the late 1980s, the United States and Israel believed that they had good intelligence on Iraq, but they missed the extent of Saddam Hussein's pursuit of unconventional weapons - until after he invaded Kuwait.
In a way, I envy the freedom artists have. Artists can push themselves beyond their limits, in pursuit of their ideas and their vision, even if they are inhabited by demons that can also play tricks on them.
To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures - if not happiness - its hopeful pursuit.
The center of all my enjoyments is the home wherein are my wife and children, and I have no wish to wander out from that home in pursuit of any pleasures that the world presents.
As the great grandchildren of the industrial revolution, we have learned, at last, that the heedless pursuit of more is unsustainable and, ultimately, unfulfilling. Our planet, our security, our sense of equanimity and our very souls demand something better, something different.
For me, the only sources of moral values are the pursuit of understanding and the pursuit of happiness.
Much to Mr. Obama's chagrin, ours is not a government run by fiat. The American people have shown quite clearly that they will not simply roll over while this administration seeks to undercut our founding principles in pursuit of its preferred European model of government.
In my country, we're sufficiently consumed by the concept of happiness that the right to its pursuit is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. But what is happiness?
The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work. They are increasingly seen as not being neutral but rather as combatants by one side or the other.
The pursuit of happiness, which American citizens are obliged to undertake, tends to involve them in trying to perpetuate the moods, tastes and aptitudes of youth.
We are becoming able to see the pursuit of external power for what it is and the futility of trying to escape the pain of powerlessness by changing the world. When we look inward, not outward, we can dismantle the parts of our personalities that have controlled us for so long - such as anger, jealousy, vindictiveness, superiority, inferiority.
It would be fantastic to spend your whole life trying to pursue something and then finally, at the last moment, you achieve it. You know, instead of getting it in the middle of the pursuit and spending the second half giving it meaning.
Fanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.
What Washington desperately needs now are citizen legislators that are dedicated to leading a free people and to maintain our God-given right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I was very ambitious. It all started because my first boyfriend dumped me when I was 14. I'd always wanted to be a model and thought, 'Right, he's going to see me everywhere.' I was relentless in my pursuit of modeling. It was revenge.
Professorship is not a career, but rather a life's pursuit. The people with whom I work daily exemplify and remind me of this promise.
We need to encourage young women to find what they love to do. That is a very valuable pursuit - more so than the pursuit of a boyfriend. When you have that core, you bring that core to every aspect of your life.
The ecstatic insanity of romantic pursuit can be so enhanced by music that entire romantic conquests, victories and ruinous, crushing defeats can be tied to songs to such a degree that it's almost unbearable to listen to them again, as they bring back the memories so vividly.
Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.
I read every book about Buster Keaton and Chaplin to see how they worked - it's all about dedication, tunnel vision, pursuit of perfection, getting the gag right.
We must not sacrifice one of our remaining untamed places in reckless pursuit of oil. We know we have to leave oil in the ground, or destructive climate change will become unstoppable. If not in the pristine and vulnerable Arctic Ocean, then where?
I've always embraced failure as a noble pursuit. It allows you to be anti whatever anyone wants you to be, and to break all the rules.
Now you know my credo: Free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. And let me add to that from our Founding Fathers: Our Creator endowed us with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, freedom.
The pursuit of the vibrant seems to be the universal job description of the nation's city planners nowadays. It is also part of the Obama administration's economic recovery strategy for the nation.
As readers, we sense when the game is being played for real and when something else is afoot: pride, showmanship, the pursuit of power, self-aggrandizement, revenge, making money. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, but I dislike closing a book with the sense that I've been had.