John Gokongwei Quotes

Slow and steady wins the race, and I believe in paying your dues.

Life’s a marathon, not a sprint.

The only way things will happen is if people get over the notion that they must see immediate success. If they get over that notion and persist, then they will see things happen before they even realize it.

There is no royal road to anything, one thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, endures.

Plodding wins the race.

Infinite patience gets you immediate results.

Success is a fruit of slow growth.

Why can't we have patience and expect good things to take time?

Slow and steady wins the race. 'The hare and the tortoise

Remember that the most difficult tasks are consummated, not by a single explosive burst of energy or effort, but by the constant daily application of the best you have within you.

Now I know that patience and time can do more than even strength and passion. The years of frustration are ready to be harvested. All that I have managed to accomplish, and all that I hope to accomplish, has been and will be by that plodding, patient, persevering process which builds the ant heap, particle by particle, thought by thought, step by step.

I've been in the business 60 years, and it's taken me this long to play a scene with a monkey. That's what happens if you stick around.

I've been working a long time; it was a slow burn. But I'm grateful it's been like that.

You don't want to have a fast career for two years. You want to have an amazing career for 20 years.

Slowly would be better than not at all.

"Softly, softly, catchee monkey," is the West African rendering of a very valuable precept. An awful lot of men fail through lack of patient persistence.

A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters. To lightly dismiss a success because it does not usher in a complete order of justice is to fail to comprehend the process of achieving full victory.

Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs With a brilliant, fitful pace, It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race. And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past, Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead, In the glare of the truth at last.

This is a slow business to have success in. There are exceptions, but for the most part it's kind of like the last writer standing.... I've got gray. I've got plenty of gray. I'm creating a career slowly, like a coral reef.

What's nurtured slowly grows well.

You can win with consistent benefits, delivered over time. You win by incrementally earning share, attention and trust.

Everybody is looking for instant success, but it doesn't work that way. You build a successful life one day at a time.

All good work is done the way ants do things: Little by little.

How you start is important, very important, but in the end it is how you finish that counts. It is easier to be a self-starter than a self-finisher. The victor in the race is not the one who dashes off swiftest but the one who leads at the finish. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter in life's race. In America we breed many hares but not so many tortoises.