What we reliably find is that people’s perseverance scores are actually higher than their passion scores, and I think it really does get to the fact that working hard is hard, but maybe finding your passion is even more difficult.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHEverybody knows that effort matters. What was revelatory to me was how much it mattered.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
-
-
People who are really gritty – they’re still interested.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Maybe. But the reality is that our early interests are fragile, vaguely defined, and in need of energetic, years-long cultivation and refinement.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
And I’ve discovered a strikingly consistent pattern: grit and age go hand in hand. Sixty-somethings tend to be grittier, on average, than fifty-somethings, who are in turn grittier than forty-somethings, and so on.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Many things matter other than our measured intelligence, so let’s get to work on them.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I worked hard when I was a consultant. I worked hard when I was in graduate school looking at neuroscience.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
If the quality and quantity of continuous effort toward goals matters as much as I think it does, we may actually get more productive, not less, as we get older – even if we can’t pull all-nighters like we used to.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
There are no shortcuts to true excellence.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
It’s a very good thing to teach kids to finish what they started in the sense of fulfilling their commitments.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
There’s something about taking the path of least resistance that makes a lot of sense. But at the same time, we have to figure out which things in life are worth struggling through.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
There is a fluency and an ease with which true mastery and expertise always expresses itself, whether it be in writing, whether it be in a mathematical proof, whether it be in a dance that you see on stage, really in every domain. But I think the question is, you know, where does that fluency and mastery come from?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
There are so many things that kids care about, where they excel, where they try hard, where they learn important life lessons, that are not picked up by test scores.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
Most teachers, when surveyed, say that it is part of their job to help students develop things like grit. This is especially true at the elementary and middle school levels. They feel it’s part of their vocation to teach other things that are not formally academic content.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH -
I’m not a policy oriented person. I’m constrained to what I study. But educational policy has not yet taken adequate note of the whole child. Kids are not just their IQ or standardized test scores. It matters whether or not they show up, how hard they work.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH






