A plodding diligence brings us sooner to our journey's end, than a fluttering way of advancing by starts. [ L'Estrange ]

Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants. [ Swift ]

Nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; the best of them in doubt and misery; the plurality in plodding hesitation, doing, as well as they can, what practical work lies ready to their hands. [ John Ruskin ]

Genius, without work, is certainly a dumb oracle; and it is unquestionably true that the men of the highest genius have invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, hardworking, and intent men - their chief characteristic apparently consisting simply in their power of laboring more intensely and effectively than others. [ Samuel Smiles ]