People’s lives really do turn out differently. And it certainly can’t be explained by how intelligent you remember them being when they were sitting next to you in organic chemistry class.
ANGELA DUCKWORTHGrit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort.
More Angela Duckworth Quotes
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I was a good novice teacher, but I did the things that were obvious.
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I do feel it’s hard to be modest and humble and egoless when people are telling you you are so great and wanting to give you prizes and energy. I’m trying hard not to be an awful, narcissistic human being.
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I would be surprised if my girls ended up as women without grit. I really would.
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I worked hard when I was a consultant. I worked hard when I was in graduate school looking at neuroscience.
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As our knees and hips and eyesight deteriorate, we become more dependable, less impulsive, kinder, and less moody.
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I worked hard as a teacher. But those are completely different career paths. And the lack of direction is why I didn’t get far enough in any of those things.
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Why do some people try, try again, and why do some people not? That’s what I’m after.
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The focus on just thinking about standardized test scores as being synonymous with achievement for teenagers is ridiculous, right?
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Childhood is generally far too early to know what we want to be when we grow up.
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When people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.
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If you are a young person who is wanting to develop a passion, you cannot expect anyone else to tell you what that passion would be.
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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.
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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?
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Some of the things we do are great, but they often have these iterations that are not great. We screw up sometimes. We get rejected.
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I don’t think that every child in America is going to necessarily aspire to, you know, a four-year degree from a liberal arts college or a certain kind of life. I think that people should learn to be excellent in the thing that they choose to do.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH






