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Success Isn't Measured By What You Achieve, It's Measured By The Obstacles You Overcome.
-Ethan Hawke
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Success Isn't Measured By

Ethan Hawke
...
Success Isn't Measured By What You Achieve, It's Measured By The Obstacles You Overcome.

Understanding the Quote: "success isn't measured by what you achieve, it's measured by the obstacles..."

This quote by Ethan Hawke reflects deeply on the theme of success. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Success, Overcoming, Obstacles, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Ethan Hawke interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke is celebrated for insightful thoughts on success and overcoming. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Success
Overcoming
Obstacles
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If You Can Channel The Best Part Of You That Is Bigger Than Yourself, Where It’s Not About Your Ego And Not About Getting Ahead, Then You Can Have Fun And You Aren’t Jealous Of Others. You See Other People's Talent As Another Branch Of Your Own. You Can Keep It Rooted In Joy. Life Is Long And There Are Plenty Of Opportunities To Make Mistakes. The Point Of It All Is To Learn.
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Trying
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Want
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Have Faith
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I Did One Sci-fi Movie. I Did 'gattaca.' I Liked 'gattaca' Because That Was Always The Kind Of Science Fiction I Really Dug, The Non-action Oriented Sci-fi.
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Alejandro Amenábar Is A Very Interesting Filmmaker. I Had Really Liked The Others, Which Was A Movie He Made With Nicole Kidman A Few Years Ago. He Made A Very Compelling Case About How Much He Wanted Me To Be In This Movie. Whenever A Really Passionate, Talented Filmmaker Seems To Have An Interest In Me, I Take It Very Seriously Because I Like To Work.
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I Take Pleasure In The Little Things. Double Cheeseburgers, Those Are Good, The Sky Ten Minutes Before It Rains,the Moment Your Laugh Turns Into A Cackle. And I Sit Here, And Smoke My Camel Straights, And I Ride My Own Melt.
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Sky
Laughing
The Experience On That Movie (dead Poets Society) Was, For Lack Of A Better Term, Life-altering. Peter Weir Has A Unique Talent For Making Movies That Are Intelligent But Also Mainstream. I've Never Been Terribly Successful At Doing That.
Successful
Intelligent
Unique
When You Start Becoming Really Successful, The Demons Start To Tempt You - The Demons Of Vanity And Self Importance, Drug Abuse, The Feelings Of Fraudulence. But, It's Also A Thrill. That's What I Found Weird.
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Kind
Success Isn't Measured By What You Achieve, It's Measured By The Obstacles You Overcome.
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I Got To Work With Robert Deniro Once And It Was A Strange Experience. Gwyneth Paltrow And I Were Doing Great Expectations Movie Together And We Were Complaining About What A Mediocre Film Experience It Was. Deniro Showed Up On Set And All Of A Sudden The Director Got Better, The Director Of Photography Got Better - Everybody Got More Interested And Excited. Deniro Isn't Waiting For Other People To Create The Environment That He Wants, He Brings It Along With Him.
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People
Expectations
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Thinking
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Development
Should
Aspect
I Have Totally Hitched My Wagon To The Horse Of Storytelling, And The Idea That None Of Us Know Why We're Born, Or Why We're Gonna Die, Or What We're Planted Here, Or What's On The Other Side Of The Galaxy, Or When Time Began, Or When Time End. The Whole Nature Of Reality Is Pretty Up For Grabs, Really.
Horse
Reality
Ideas
The Biggest Problem In My Life Is Trying To Be The Kind Of Man That I Want To Be, The Father That I Want To Be, And How To Process The Failure Of My Marriage.
Father
Men
Trying
The Most Creative And Most Periods Of My Life That Were, Had The Most Growth, Were The Ones Where I Was Perceived To Be Failing. Perceived Success Is A, Is Really Hard 'cause It Doesn't Really, It's Not Asking You To Grow, See Failure Is Asking You To Grow.
Creative
Growth
Asking
I Feel Like Everyone I Meet Is An Imaginary Friend. I Don't Know. The Older I Get The More I Wonder What's Real.
Real
Wonder
Feels
The Thing That Makes A Great Genre Movie Is One That's Not Just Entertainment, Not Just Horror Or Sci-fi Or Whatever. The Ones I Love Are The Genre Pictures With Some Subversive Message Underlying It All.
Messages
Entertainment
Horror
It's Interesting To Get Older And Realize That Part Of Your Job Growing Up In This Profession Is To Help The Next Generation. More And More, With Boyhood And With Ellar Coltrane And With Emma [watson], I Start To See That Role. There's No Better Way. Nobody Wants Advice, So You Can't Really Give It. You Just Have To Try To Wish Them Well On Their Journey.
Jobs
Growing Up
Journey
I Think That As Soon As You Think Of Yourself As A Famous Person Or Anything Like That, You're Objectifying Yourself In Some Weird Way.
Thinking
Way
Objectifying
If I Do Three Movies In A Year, I Don't Feel Like Acting Ever Again.
Years
Acting
Three
The Only Thing I Can Point To Of Why I Survived Is I Have A Family That Loves Me And Never Wanted Any Money From Me.
Wanted
Survived
I Can
My Process Differs... My Process For A Richard Linklater Film Is Very Different Than A Process For Training Day.
Training
Different
Film
I Remember Being A Kid And Sleeping Over At My Friend's House And Staying Up Late And Watching 'nosferatu.' Vampire Movies Are Supposed To Be Secret And Bad. They Should Be Rated R.
Sleep
Kids
House
Whenever A Really Passionate, Talented Filmmaker Seems To Have An Interest In Me, I Take It Very Seriously Because I Like To Work.
Passionate
Filmmaker
Interest
If You Say To Yourself, Okay, I Will Not Self-destruct. I Don't Have To Be The Most Talented Person. I Don't Have To Be Everybody's Best Friend, I Don't Have To Be Liked, I Don't Have To Be Successful, Well, One Thing I Will Not Do Is Self-destruct. If You Take That Out, Your Chances For Success Just Went Up Like 800 Percent.
Successful
Self
Chance
The Girls Who Like Me Aren't The Ones I Like. Or, If I Do And They Want To Commit, I Suddenly Need Tons Of Time With My Friends.
Girl
Needs
Want
I Have A Daughter And The Thing I Wish For Her Is Not Love, Fame, Money Or Anything Like That. It's Just One Great Best Friend. You Know, If You Have Somebody That Has Your Back, You're Gonna Be All Right.
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Wish
Fame
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Children
Support
Hollywood
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Meat
Knows
Seeing The Play ( A Lie Of The Mind ) Clearly Is Part Of Why I Wanted To Direct It. I See Hope At The End Of This Play. People Talk About How Dark The Play Was, But I Feel Like, If You Really Look At The Darkness, You're Able To Go Through It, And You Realize That You Can Handle Dark Moments In Life And That Everything Will Be All Right.
Lying
Dark
Play
Some People Burn Out, And Some People Like Clint Eastwood, He Was A Wild, International Movie Star In His 30s, And He's Doing The Best Work Of His Life Now. Go Figure.
Stars
People
Figures
It Was When I Was On The Set Of Dead Poets Society.there Was Actor,his Name Was Norman Lloyd. One Day He Took Us All Aside And Said, "you Guys Don't Even Understand What A Powerful Experience You're Having. You Don't Really Understand What A Gift This Is." We Were Going, "what Does He Mean?" It Was That Really Wonderful Opportunities Aren't To Be Taken For Granted. I Often Found That It Had Embedded Itself In My Memory.
Memories
Powerful
Taken
I Meet A Lot Of Young People That Want To Go Into Acting Because They Think Of What It Will Do For Them. If That's The Case, It Can Be A Very, Very Painful Profession. But If The Kids Want To Do Acting Because They Love It, And They Want To Give To It, Then They Can Have A Great Life. It's Really About As Simple As How You Look At It.
Kids
Simple
Thinking
I Don't Know What Has Happened To Movies, But Lately Every Movie Is At Least 20 Minutes Too Long. It Used To Be That If You Were Three Hours Long It Was Because It Was Epic - A Movie About Gandhi; Something With Very Important Subject Matters.
Epic
Long
Important
And The Joy Of My Job - And It's Really True - Is That It's Constantly Evolving And Changing.
Jobs
Joy
Evolve
I Did This Movie Right After It About The Life Of Chet Baker. It's Called Born To Be Blue. In That Situation, There's A Real Clear Character You're Drawing On. It's A Real Person. It's Really Exciting And Interesting To Do The Research To Figure Out How To Make That A Nuanced, Three-dimensional Human Being.
Real
Character
Blue
I'd Really Rather That Nobody Had A Gun, And Then Nobody Would Have To Worry About It. That Would Be More My Theory. In America, There's This Knee-jerk Response That More Walls And More Guns Make People Safer, And I'm Entirely Suspect Of That Way Of Thinking.
Wall
Gun
Thinking
Few Years Ago I Did A Movie, Good Kill, About Drone Pilots And For Four Or Five Months I'm Obsessed With The Air Force.
Air
Years
Drones
But The Truth Is, I've Never Wanted To Be A Movie Star - And I've Been Pretty Clear About That.
Stars
Truth Is
Movie Star
I Have Had So Many Bad Auditions.
Auditions
I Can't Tell You How Many Times In The '90s I'd Meet Somebody, We'd Be Having A Nice Time, And They'd Sigh And Go, 'this Is Exactly Like Before Sunrise.' And I'd Have To Get Up And Leave.
Nice
Sunrise
Get Up
To Get To Be Somebody Who Gets To Love What They Do For A Living, That's So Rare, And So There Must Be Some Kind Of Price You Have To Pay.
Pay
Kind
And The Best Films Feel Like A Fist Punching You In The Solar Plexus And All Elements Of The Filmmaking Process - The Acting, The Design, The Cinematography, The Music, Is All Working To One End.
Design
Acting
Elements
I've Had Different Opportunities In My Life, But I've Tried To Maintain The Spirit Of An Amateur. Our Culture Roots Everything In The Barometer Of Success And How Much Money You Make. But If You Really Just Aspire To A Life In The Arts, It's Really Not A Barometer At All.
Art
Opportunity
Roots
Life's Hard. It's Supposed To Be. If We Didn't Suffer, We'd Never Learn Anything.
Sunset
Suffering
Supposed To Be
I'd Be Lying If I Said I Had Confidence In Every Choice I've Made, That I Have Faith In Every Film I Do On Every Shot.
Lying
Choices
Have Faith
The Constant Buzz And Pressure And Noise And Static Of The Internet, And The Way It Makes Young People Feel Makes It Difficult To Grow Up And Develop The Way One Might Want To.
Growing Up
People
Want
Give Your Heart To Everybody You Meet. The Rest Is Pretense.
Heart
Giving
Pretense
There's Something About Knowing Life Is Finite That Makes It So Precious.
Knowing
Life Is
Finite
I Always Felt That A Marriage Works Best At A Farm... Where You're Together And Everybody Has Clear-cut Roles; They Have Chores, 'you Take Care Of This' And You Know. But It's Hard.
Cutting
Together
Roles
One Of The Things That Separates A Good Genre Movie From A Bad Genre Movie, I Always Think, Ironically, Is When You Care About The People. The Dime A Dozen Ones Are Where You Don't Have Any Awareness Of The Character.
Character
Thinking
People
You Can't Keep Wanting To Be 20 Years Old. Everybody Knows That, But What's In The Next Room?
Years
Rooms
Next
Years Ago I Was Going To Play Chet Baker In Another Movie And I Really Felt Drawn To That Character And The Script Is Good And I Met With Robert And We Seemed Simpatico And We Developed. But I Had A Real Passion For That Role And That Brought Me Deep Into That Film 'cause I Got The Sense That Robert Budreau Was Going To Really Let Me Be Creative Inside This Part.
Real
Passion
Character
If You Study The History Of Mankind, It Seems To Be A History Of Violence. Certainly The History Of Art, Whether You Look At Paintings Or Movies Or Plays Or Whatever, Is Just A Litany Of Murder And Death.
Art
Play
Looks
The Thing That Really Breeds Career Longevity In This Profession Is Doing Good Work. You Can Make $20 Million A Movie, But Does That Mean You'll Still Have A Job When You're 60? It's A Profession That Eats People Up And Wants Constant Turnaround, So You Have To Dedicate Yourself To Learning And Making The Most Of Whatever Gift You May Have.
Jobs
Mean
Careers
A Lot Of American Actors When They Do Shakespeare Put On A Phoney English Accent And It Drives Me Crazy. You're Always Fighting Against The Idea That Only The British Know How To Do Shakespeare.
Crazy
Fighting
Ideas
When I Woke Up I Was Naked. I Have This One Oddball Idiosyncrasy: Sometimes In My Sleep I Take Off All My Clothes.
Sleep
Clothes
Naked
I've Very Rarely Worked With Somebody That Had Such A Clear Idea Of What Alejandro Amenábar Wanted To Do And What He Wanted To Achieve. The Guy Is Incredibly Prepared. He Was Clearly Making A Movie For Himself And His Own Dream. I Just Tried To Be A Part Of That Dream. It's A Rare Opportunity.
Dream
Opportunity
Ideas
What I Learned About Acting, From My Experiences Directing, Is Why So Many Producers And Directors Don't Like Actors. You Go Through All Of This Work Securing A Location, Figuring Out How To Get Electricity There, How To Get Trucks Parked Where They Need To Be, And Where Catering Is Going To Come From. And If The Actors Don't Come Up With Some Magic, It Actually Didn't Matter. That Creates A Lot Of Animosity Towards The Actors.
Magic
Acting
Truck
I Don't Have A Lot Of Experiences Like This Where Every Time I Thought I Had A Good Idea It Was Totally Wrong. I Had To Give In Completely And Just Try To Make The Movie Alejandro Amenábar Was Trying To Make.
Ideas
Giving
Trying
I've Always Been Interested In Directing. I Started Acting When I Was Thirteen Years Old, So I've Had Some Desire To Do Something Else In My Life.
Years
Desire
Acting
There's This Kind Of Incredibly Mistaken Idea That Because It's So Much Cheaper To Roll The Camera Than It Used To Be And It's So Much Easier To Accumulate A Ton Of Footage, That Then You Can Just Go Shoot A Ton Of Footage And The Editor Will Make Sense Out Of It. But If You Don't Have Something Deliberate Made, You're Not Gonna Save It In The Editing Room.
Editing
Editors
Ideas
It's So Hard For Every Young Person, Trying To Figure Out The Adult You Want To Be.
Trying
Adults
Want
Its Difficult To Do A Genre Film Well, And It Doesnt Matter If Youre Talking Vampire Movies Or Dawn Of The Dead Or The Thing Or Escape From New York. Those Kind Of Movies, They Understand What The Old-school B-movie Is Supposed To Be, They Get The Throwback Of It.
New York
School
Talking
One Of The Hardest Things About My Job Is That There Kind Of Is No One Rulebook That Applies To All Situations.
Jobs
Kind
Situation
I Remember Staying Up All Night Waiting To See The First Screening Of Cape Fear Because You Knew That Every Time Robert Deniro Had A Performance It Was Going To Be Revelatory. Then Deniro Hit This Place, He Seemed Like He Was Done With The Emotional Cost Of Impaling Himself Like That, And He Dedicated Himself To Comedy.
Night
Emotional
Waiting
When I See Lionel Messi Play Soccer, He Lets The Game Come To Him. He Lets The Game Unveil Itself To Him, Then Like A Lion He Eats The Whole Thing.
Soccer
At Every Turn, When Humanity Is Asked The Question, 'do You Want Temporary Economic Gain Or Long-term Environmental Loss, Which One Do You Prefer,' We Invariably Choose The Money.
Loss
Long
Humanity
Set Designers, Costume Designers, Actors, Writers, Music, That's What Is Beautiful.
Beautiful
Designer
I Think Having Nature Be A Part Of People's Lives Helps All Of Us See Ourselves As Part Of Something Larger.
Thinking
People
Helping
It Was A Really Strange Experience. It Was Very Creative For Alejandro Amenábar. It Was Almost Like It Was The Most I Ever Felt Like I Was Helping Someone Paint. They Had A Very Clear Idea Of What They Wanted It To Look Like, Sound Like, Be Like. So, There Was No Operating Outside The Box. The Only Way To Help Him Was To Try To Really Be A Part Of His Imagination And Try To Make It Happen. He's A Super Kind And Loving Person. So, You Wanted To Help Him. It Just Was None Of My Normal Ways Of Helping A Director Work At All. So, It Was A Unique Experience For Me That Way.
Unique
Helping Someone
Ideas
I Love Working On Scripts. I Love Coming Up With Ideas About What People Would Dress Like Or Talk Like. I Love All That.
Ideas
People
Dresses
I Enjoyed Meeting Emma [watson]. I Have A Soft Spot In My Heart For Child Actors Growing Up. I Know How Hard That Is. Having Gone Through That Experience Myself, I Have A Lot Of Sensitivity To It. For Lack Of A Better Word, I Just Feel Like I Love These Kids, And I Want Them All To Grow Up And Love Themselves, And Not Get Caught Up In The Wrong Things, And To Learn All The Different Things This Profession Has To Give, And To Understand It.
Children
Growing Up
Heart
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