Discipline (Focus)

• He that is everywhere is nowhere. — English Proverb

• You cannot chase two gazelles. — Zulu Proverb

• Those who have one foot in the canoe and one foot in the boat are going to fall into the river. — Native American (Tuscarora) Proverb

• As the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap out of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, so should you stop off your miscellaneous activities and concentrate your focus on one or a few points. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

• To accomplish anything definite a person renounces everything else. — Santayana

• Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability. — Roy L. Smith

• The secret of discipline? Love what you do. Then you are far more likely to have to force yourself NOT to do it than to do it! — Sage of Mt. Si

• Errands are small on a spring day. — Icelandic Proverb

• What we do willingly is easy. — English Proverb

• God helps the navigator, but on condition that he rows. — Czech Proverb

• It is no use to wait for your ship to come in unless you have sent one out. —Belgium Proverb

• God will cook the soup for him who has water, herbs, and wood. — Russian Proverb

• Roast geese don’t come flying into your mouth. — Dutch Proverb

• Begin to weave and God will give the thread. — German proverb

• The desire to write grows with writing. — Erasmus

• I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. — Thomas Jefferson

• The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. — Mary Vorse

• Writers don’t have lifestyles. They sit in little rooms and write. — Norman Mailer

• If people know how hard I have to work to gain my mastery it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all. — Michelangelo

• At what expense any valuable work is performed! At the expense of a life! If you do one thing well, what else are you good for in the meanwhile? — Thoreau, in his journal

• The artistic impulse seems not to wish to produce finished work. It certainly deserts us half-way, after the idea is born; and if we go on, art is labor. —Clarence Day

• Many people who want to be writers don’t really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. — James Michener

• Make it a point to do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. —Mark Twain