"Whatever course you have chosen for yourself, it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of the glory of striving"
About this Quote
Sarnoff sells effort the way the early broadcast age sold electricity: not as mere utility, but as a romance. The line is engineered to rebrand work from drudgery into narrative. “Whatever course you have chosen” flatters the listener with agency, even though modern labor rarely feels freely chosen. Then comes the pivot: adventure is not in the job itself but in your stance toward it. That’s the subtextual bargain. If it feels like a chore, you’re invited to blame your attitude rather than the conditions.
The phrase “glory of striving” is doing heavy ideological lifting. Glory belongs to war stories, exploration, invention - arenas where risk and sacrifice are honored because they promise public reward. Sarnoff, a radio-and-television titan who rose from immigrant poverty into corporate power, is speaking from a world that worshiped progress and treated industriousness as both moral proof and social escalator. In that context, “striving” isn’t just personal grit; it’s the ethic that fuels industrial expansion and corporate loyalty. The “sense” of glory matters because it internalizes motivation: the worker becomes their own foreman.
What makes the quote work is its clean conversion of burden into meaning. It doesn’t promise success, only a psychological upgrade: keep pushing and you can feel heroic even when the outcome is uncertain. It’s inspirational, yes, but also managerial in the deepest sense - a pep talk that turns ambition into a self-sustaining power source.
The phrase “glory of striving” is doing heavy ideological lifting. Glory belongs to war stories, exploration, invention - arenas where risk and sacrifice are honored because they promise public reward. Sarnoff, a radio-and-television titan who rose from immigrant poverty into corporate power, is speaking from a world that worshiped progress and treated industriousness as both moral proof and social escalator. In that context, “striving” isn’t just personal grit; it’s the ethic that fuels industrial expansion and corporate loyalty. The “sense” of glory matters because it internalizes motivation: the worker becomes their own foreman.
What makes the quote work is its clean conversion of burden into meaning. It doesn’t promise success, only a psychological upgrade: keep pushing and you can feel heroic even when the outcome is uncertain. It’s inspirational, yes, but also managerial in the deepest sense - a pep talk that turns ambition into a self-sustaining power source.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
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