A Quote by Gretchen Rubin

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently. Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century writer who managed to be a prolific novelist while also revolutionizing the British postal system, observed, “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency fosters both productivity and creativity.

Gretchen Rubin

Quote Topics

Also Beat Both British Century Consistently Creativity Daily Frequency Habit Hercules Long Long Period Long Run Novelist Observed Over Overestimate Period Postal Productivity Prolific Provided Really Run Short Short Period Slowly Small System Task Tend Underestimate While Will Work Writer

Quote Author

Gretchen Rubin
American - Author

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

Anthony Trollope

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period.

Gretchen Rubin

Nothing surely is as potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small dainty task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

Anthony Trollope

I think of novels as houses. You live in them over the course of a long period, both as a reader and as a writer.

Nicole Krauss

In order for a long piece of work to engage a novelist over an extended period of time, it has to deal with questions that you find very important, that you're trying to work out.

Donna Tartt

When you're leading, you're generally trying to lead change, and I think it was Roy Amara, who said about technology, "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." And I think the same applies to change within an organization.

Harry West

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up.

Barbara Kingsolver

Success is created through the performance of a few small daily disciplines that stack up over time to produce achievements far beyond anything you could of ever planned for. Failure, on the other hand, is just as easy to slip into. Failure's is nothing more than the inevitable outcome of a few small acts of daily neglect performed consistently over time so that they take you past the point of no return.

Robin Sharma

Consequently, citizen legislators, rotating back to their communities after a short period of public service—considered an indispensable and routine characteristic and design of representative government at the time of the founding, and for a century thereafter—have been replaced with a professional ruling class led by governing masterminds. For the most part, they are isolated from the communities from which they hail and are consumed with the daily jockeying for position and power within their ranks. Moreover, they both pander to and lord over their constituents.

Mark Levin

The essential thing is to run period! And to do it for a long time and consistently and then everything will take care of itself.

Bernd Heinrich

Humans more easily remember or learn items when they are studied a few times over a long period of time (spaced presentation), rather than studied repeatedly in a short period of time.

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Pace yourself in your reading. A little bit every day really adds up. If you read during sporadic reading jags, the fits and starts will not get you anywhere close to the amount of reading you will need to do. It is far better to walk a mile a day than to run five miles every other month. Make time for reading, and make a daily habit of it, even if it is a relatively small daily habit.

Douglas Wilson

Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time.

George Carlin

A kaiseki meal is like that, very small courses over a long period of time.

Thomas Keller

'In the nineteenth century, we beat the British more than once,' Afghans often told me. 'In the twentieth century, we beat the Russians. In the twenty-first, if we have to, we'll beat the Americans!'

William T. Vollmann

Because I work quite slowly, I have to keep myself interested over a long research and writing period. So I can't see myself writing about modern middle-class Londoners anytime soon.

Stef Penney

A Quote by Gretchen Rubin

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors