Top 326 Quotes & Sayings by Orison Swett Marden - Page 2

There is no stimulus like that which comes from the consciousness of knowing that others believe in us.

It is what we do easily and what we like to do that we do well.

The most fascinating person is always the one of the most winning manners; not the one of greatest physical beauty.

We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.

To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.

The forthputting of willpower is a means of strengthening willpower. The will becomes strong by exercise. To stick to a thing till you are master is a test of intellectual discipline and power.

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.

If you are ambitious to talk well, you must be as much as possible in the society of well-bred, cultured people. If you seclude yourself, though you are a college graduate, you will be a poor converser.

The most irresistible charm of youth is its bubbling enthusiasm. Youth sees no darkness ahead - no defile that has no outlet - it forgets that there is such a thing as failure in the world and believes that mankind has been waiting all these centuries for him to come and be the liberator of truth and energy and beauty.

What is enthusiasm but a passionate belief in what seems to be a high and holy aim - an unselfish devotion to some noble cause - a consecration of heart and mind and soul to the attainment of a great object?

What power can poverty have over a home where loving hearts are beating with a consciousness of untold riches of the head and heart?

Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals.

Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him.

It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining that he has no time or opportunity.

If a thing seems to you worth working for at all, if it appears to you of moment enough to challenge any effort, then put into what you do all the enthusiasm of which you are capable, regardless of criticism.

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.

The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling.

The size of your accomplishments, the quality of your achievement, will depend very largely on how big a man you see in yourself, what sort of image you get of your possible self, yourself at your best.

Wanted: a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting a living.

Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them... they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.

Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.

No matter where your lot may be cast, no power on earth can keep you from making a man of yourself, a superb character, a masterpiece.

Live in the very soul of expectation of better things, in the conviction that something large, grand, and beautiful will await you if your efforts are intelligent, if your mind is kept in a creative condition and you struggle upward to your goal.

Without this tremendous passion for power, influence, and advantage which money gives, how could nature develop the highest type of man? Without this infinite longing, whence would come the discipline which industry, perseverance, tact, sagacity, and frugality give?

If you would make the most of yourself, never picture yourself as anything different from what you would actually be, the man or woman you long to become.

The influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor.

The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.

We fail to see that we can control our destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible; make ourselves become whatever we long to be.

The great aim of your life should be to keep your powers up to the highest possible standard, to so conserve your energies, guard your health, that you can make every occasion a great occasion.

With five chances on each hand and one unwavering aim, no boy, however poor, need despair. There is bread and success for every youth under the American flag who has energy and ability to seize his opportunity.

If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.

You have not found your place until all your faculties are roused, and your whole nature consents and approves of the work you are doing.

Put the uncommon effort into the common task... make it large by doing it in a great way.

There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance, and half the battle is in the conviction that we can do what we undertake.

You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else.

Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness, but industry makes the commonest chances golden.

It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind.

Unless you have prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you just in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it.

Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is out of the question.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.

Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will never fail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for assistance; open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon which to bestow their gifts; open hands will never lack for noble work to do.

The sort of man you will make of yourself, how you will be regarded by the world, whether people will admire and respect or despise you, whether you win the approval or the condemnation of your Maker - all this is in your own hands.

He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others.

The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.

Our dreaming capacity gives us a peep into the glorious realities that await us further on. It is the evidence of things possible to us.

Strength of will is the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip?

No employer today is independent of those about him. He cannot succeed alone, no matter how great his ability or capital. Business today is more than ever a question of cooperation.

The hand cannot reach higher than does the heart.

I wish I could fill every young man who reads these pages with an utter dread and horror of poverty. I wish I could make you so feel its shame, its constraint, its bitterness that you would make vows against it.

Nearly all the great improvements, discoveries, inventions, and achievements which have elevated and blessed humanity have been the triumphs of enthusiasm.

More men are ruined by underestimating the value of money than by overestimating it. Let us, then, abandon the affectation of despising money, and frankly own its value.

No one has a corner on success. It is his who pays the price.

Your expectations opens or closes the doors of your supply, If you expect grand things, and work honestly for them, they will come to you, your supply will correspond with your expectation.

Be larger than your task.

History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized occasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less resolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the world before them.

Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.

Charm of personality is a divine gift that sways the strongest characters and sometimes even controls the destinies of nations.

Existence is the privilege of effort, and when that privilege is met like a man, opportunities to succeed along the line of your aptitude will come faster than you can use them.

The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.

Circumstances have rarely favored great men. A lowly beginning is no bar to a great career. The boy who works his way through college may have a hard time of it, but he will learn how to work his way in life, and will usually take higher rank in school and in after life than his classmate who is the son of a millionaire.