Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen. It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment, the effort to overcome laziness and merit, the effort to make each activity of our day meditation.
How does he achieve this independence? He does it by means of a continuous activity. How does he become free? By means of constant effort. we know that development results from activity. The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.
On occasion we need to make a second effort - and a third effort, and a fourth effort, and as many degrees of effort as may be required to accomplish what we strive to achieve.
Talent without effort is wasted talent. And while effort is the one thing you can control in your life, applying that effort intelligently is next on the list.
Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it.
It would have been easy to judge effort by how many hours a day passed while I was at work. That's the worst way to measure effort. Effort is measured by setting goals and getting results.
The first thing to be understood: effort is needed, but effort alone is not enough - effort and then effortlessness, effort plus effortlessness. Effort precedes, and then effortlessness follows. Effortlessness is the peak of effort, it comes only when you have reached the peak
Wins and losses come a dime a dozen. But effort? Nobody can judge effort. Effort is between you and you. Effort ain't got nothing to do with nobody else.
Complexity means distracted effort. Simplicity means focused effort.
The goal in life is the same as in basketball: make the effort to do the best you are capable of doing--in marriage, at your job, in the community, for your country. Make the effort to contribute in whatever way you can. You may do it materially or with time, ideas, or work. Making the effort to contribute is what counts. The effort is what counts in everything.
I never question the way I write. Writing is the only thing that's without seams for me. It's an effort to talk because my pictures have to be turned into these sounds. It's an effort to be alive. It's work. But writing is wonderful.
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work; a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will; a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words.
Zen is not effort. Effort is tension, effort is work, effort is to achieve something. Zen is not something to achieve. You are already that. Just relax, relax so deeply that you become a revelation to yourself.
A lot of effort and money are - rightly - expended keeping the president physically safe. But it's up to the president to maintain a schedule that allows for refueling, so as to be physically and cognitively at his or her best at all times. That's what it means to be strong, tough, and truly fit for the highest office.
In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you're not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn't need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented.