Wearing down seven number two pencils is a good day's work.
Interpretation
True accomplishment can often be found in simple tasks and the discipline of work.
In this quote, Ernest Hemingway emphasizes that the value of hard work is not necessarily measured by grand achievements, but rather by the dedication and effort put into everyday tasks. The act of wearing down seven number two pencils symbolizes the consistent application of effort and the importance of small, incremental progress in one's work ethic.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the value of perseverance.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
If you want to make good use of your time, you've got to know what's most important and then give it all you've got.
We all can be masters at our craft, but you have to make sacrifices that come along with making that decision.
Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.
My friends in college, several of whom are still my closest companions, would tell you that I was almost obsessed with becoming - fixated on creating - the future that I envisioned for myself: one of expanding to know my fullest self, which I have in no way achieved.
If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, ''Here comes number seventy-one!''
If critics have problems with my personal life, it's their problem. Anybody with half a brain would realize that it's the charts that count.
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