quotations about success
Success is in the student, not in the university; greatness is in the individual, not in the library; power is in the man, not in his crutches. A great man will make opportunities, even out of the commonest and meanest situations. If a man is not superior to his education, is not larger than his crutches or his helps, if he is not greater than the means of his culture, which are but the sign-boards pointing the way to success, he will never reach greatness. Not learning, not culture alone, not helps and opportunities, but personal power and sterling integrity, make a man great.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
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Success
It is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways (in any special sense) of succeeding. One is by doing very good work, the other is by cheating. Both are much too simple to require any literary explanation. If you are in for the high jump, either jump higher than any one else, or manage somehow to pretend that you have done so. If you want to succeed at whist, either be a good whist-player, or play with marked cards. You may want a book about jumping; you may want a book about whist; you may want a book about cheating at whist. But you cannot want a book about Success. Especially you cannot want a book about Success such as those which you can now find scattered by the hundred about the book-market. You may want to jump or to play cards; but you do not want to read wandering statements to the effect that jumping is jumping, or that games are won by winners. If these writers, for instance, said anything about success in jumping it would be something like this: "The jumper must have a clear aim before him. He must desire definitely to jump higher than the other men who are in for the same competition. He must let no feeble feelings of mercy (sneaked from the sickening Little Englanders and Pro-Boers) prevent him from trying to do his best. He must remember that a competition in jumping is distinctly competitive, and that, as Darwin has gloriously demonstrated, THE WEAKEST GO TO THE WALL." That is the kind of thing the book would say, and very useful it would be, no doubt, if read out in a low and tense voice to a young man just about to take the high jump. Or suppose that in the course of his intellectual rambles the philosopher of Success dropped upon our other case, that of playing cards, his bracing advice would run--"In playing cards it is very necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by maudlin humanitarians and Free Traders) of permitting your opponent to win the game. You must have grit and snap and go in to win. The days of idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of science and hard common sense, and it has now been definitely proved that in any game where two are playing IF ONE DOES NOT WIN THE OTHER WILL." It is all very stirring, of course; but I confess that if I were playing cards I would rather have some decent little book which told me the rules of the game. Beyond the rules of the game it is all a question either of talent or dishonesty; and I will undertake to provide either one or the other--which, it is not for me to say.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"The Fallacy of Success", All Things Considered
The highest and best sense in which a life is a success is within the reach of everyone. The successful life is a happy one, availing itself of the many advantages of personal culture, enjoying the sweetness and comfort of home, no matter how simple or even scanty the material furnishing may be. Above all money considerations, we may develop sterling, manly characters and have here and now the joy of heaven in our hearts and the life of heaven in our lives.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, Telling It Like It Is
Success is full of promise till men get it, and then it seems like a nest from which the bird has flown.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.
ANNE SULLIVAN
letter regarding her work with Helen Keller, October 30, 1887
The zest for life of those unusual men and women who make a great zealous success of living is due more often in good part to the craftiness and pertinacity with which they manage to overlook the misery of others. You can watch them watch life beat the stuffing out of the faces of their friends and acquaintances, although they themselves seem to outwit the dense delays of social custom, the tedious tick-tock of bureaucratic obfuscation, accepting loss and age and change and disappointment without suffering punctures in their stomach lining.
EDWARD HOAGLAND
Tigers & Ice
Success is not something you achieve, conquer, climb, or complete. Success is a process; it's a way of life.
ANTHONY ROBBINS
Unlimited Power: A Black Choice
Success does not mean happiness: it means an unusual number of industrious enemies.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
No matter whether failure came
A thousand different times,
For one brief moment of success,
Life rang its golden chimes.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"I Am Content"
The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.
MARK TWAIN
attributed, Unlimited Power
Success occurs when your dreams get bigger than your excuses.
ANONYMOUS
I think, likewise, that some sense of being successful lies in knowing what scale you work best in. I give some examples: an astronomer is one whose mind can work on a cosmic scale. A physicist is one whose mind can handle the quantum scale. A theologian the metaphysical scale. A psychiatrist works with the deep picture and on and on and on. I think many people die confused and unfulfilled, because they spend a life trying to perform above or even below their abilities and perspective. They are in the wrong scale.
ROBERT FULGHUM
interview, Future Health, January 14, 2010
The truth is that all of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible whenever we use our native capacities to their greatest extent.
SMILEY BLANTON
Love or Perish
Most of us go through life borrowing someone else's definition of success rather than coming up with our own!
TOMMY NEWBERRY
Success Is Not an Accident
I wrote a song about success, which I called "It Hasn't Happened Yet." Because success is never there. Success should always be just beyond your grasp.
WILLIAM SHATNER
Esquire, May 2012
I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.
STEVE JOBS
interview, MSNBC, May 25, 2006
At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Kingdom of Fear
Yet there seemed to be some truth in the law of probability, according to which the chance of success is directly proportionate to the number of repetitions.
KOBO ABE
The Woman in the Dunes
Success is partly a matter of luck, and may be a question of cowardice. Just as cowards come back from wartime alive, so they may get rich and sleek and influential.
EDWARD HOAGLAND
Balancing Acts