Daily Inspiration Quote by Cicely Tyson

Achievement is a tempting sedative, and Cicely Tyson is warning against taking the first dose. Her line turns the usual success narrative inside out: the danger isn’t failure, it’s the moment you start narrating yourself as “done.” In an industry that loves coronations - lifetime achievement awards, legend status, the tidy arc of “she made it” - Tyson insists that self-congratulation is a kind of creative death. The phrase “begin to think of yourself” is doing quiet work here: the threat is internal, psychological, almost private. Nobody has to cancel you; you can retire inside your own head.

The mountain metaphor is classic, but Tyson sharpens it with a deliberately impossible scale: “so high that I will spend my entire life” climbing. That’s not hustle culture, it’s vocation. She’s rejecting the transactional idea that work exists to produce a trophy moment; the work is the point, and the striving keeps the artist honest. It’s also an ethic that carries extra force given Tyson’s career-long refusal to play roles that diminished Black women. When the culture offers you shortcuts - visibility without depth, applause without risk - the “mountain” becomes a moral standard as much as an artistic one.

Subtext: don’t let praise domesticate you. Keep a horizon that stays out of reach, not because you’re insecure, but because you’re alive to possibility. Tyson isn’t chasing perfection; she’s protecting momentum.