Gumption Quotes

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own. (Jessamyn West)
Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done. View quote
Seamus Heaney
When I was a kid, people who got divorced were people who had no gumption. View quote
Phil Donahue
Abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class. The upper class wants people to have ambition and gumption because, if you do, you will participate and you'll move through society into a different class structure. View quote
Jeff Koons
Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego. You're so sure you'll do everything wrong you're afraid to do anything at all. Often this, rather than "laziness," is the real reason you find it hard to get started. This gumption trap of anxiety, which results from over-motivation, can lead to all kinds of errors of excessive fussiness. You fix things that don't need fixing, and chase after imaginary ailments. You jump to wild conclusions and build all kinds of errors into the machine because of your own nervousness. These errors, when made, tend to confirm your original underestimation of yourself. This leads to more errors, which lead to more underestimation, in a self-stoking cycle. The best way to break this cycle, I think, is to work out your anxieties on paper. Read every book and magazine you can on the subject. Your anxiety makes this easy and the more you read the more you calm down. View quote
Robert M. Pirsig
Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn't can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it. View quote
Lucy Maud Montgomery
The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches - with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone - was once at the core of the American Dream. View quote
Robert Reich
...that's really the first thing to say about Speer's architecture. It was just awful. A genius without talent, he was essentially a theatrical personality, with enough gumption to be quiet about it. View quote
Clive James
There are political reactionaries who've been saying something close to this for years. I'm not one of them, but to the extent they're talking about real individual worth and not just an excuse for giving more money to the rich, they're right. We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashioned gumption. We really do. View quote
Robert M. Pirsig