Top 326 Quotes & Sayings by Orison Swett Marden - Page 4

There is no failure for the man who realizes his power, who never knows when he is beaten; there is no failure for the determined endeavor, the conquerable will. There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persists when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back.

Worry clogs the brain and paralyzes the thought. A troubled brain can not think clearly, vigorously, locally.

We cannot rise higher than our thought of ourselves.

Every great man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel.

Pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up.

There is genius in persistence. It conquers all opposers. It gives confidence. It annihilates obstacles. Everybody believes in a determined man. People know that when he undertakes a thing, the battle is half won, for his rule is to accomplish whatever he sets out to do.

Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

When you finish a thing you ought to be able to say to yourself: 'There, I am willing to stand for that piece of work. It is not pretty well done; it is done as well as I can do it; done to a complete finish. I will stand for that. I am willing to be judged by it.'

Aspiration lifts the life; groveling lowers it. When we are striving for excellence in everything we do the entire life grows and expands, but if we allow our standards to drop, there is a natural progression that follows, a tendency for a downward effort in all that we do thereafter.

Find your purpose and fling your life out to it. Find a way or make one. Try with all your might. Self-made or never made.

The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably thought and act.

Opportunities? They are all around us ... There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it.

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.

But how shall I get ideas? ''Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind - Act!

Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. What he at first chooses, at last compels.

If we put the emphasis upon the right things, if we live the life that is worth while and then fail, we will survive all disasters, we will out-live all misfortune. We should be so well balanced and symmetrical, that nothing which could ever happen could throw us off our center, so that no matter what misfortune should overtake us, there would still be a whole magnificent man or woman left after being stripped of everything else.

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it including the thorns.

To think you can creates the force that can.

When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.

He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't.

The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer atmosphere.

Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.

What are stumbling blocks and defeat to the weak and vacillating are but stepping stones to victory to the determined soul.

The secret of happiness is in a cheerful, contented mind. He is poor who is dissatisfied; he is rich who is contented with what he has, and can enjoy what others own.

There can be no life which does not contain something to be grateful for, and the habit of gratitude is one of the most powerful assets of success and happiness which can be named.

Anybody can work when everything goes smoothly, when there is nothing to trouble him; but a man must be made of the right kind of stuff who can rise above the things which harass and handicap the weak, and do his work in spite of them. Indeed, this is the test of greatness.

The man who has not learned the secret of taking the drudgery out of his task by flinging his whole soul into it, has not learned the first principles of success or happiness.

People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others so them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence.

No man can hope to accomplish anything great in this world until he throws his whole soul, flings the force of his whole life, into it. It is not enough simply to have a general desire to accomplish something. There is but one way to do that; and that is, to try to be somebody with all the concentrated energy we can muster.

Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark.

We lend power to the things we fear!

It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.

You will find the whole world will change to you when you change your attitude toward it.

The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of the weak.

Poverty often hides her charms under an ugly mask; yet thousands have been forced into greatness by their very struggle to keep the wolf from the door.

Good cheer is a great lubricant; it oils all of life's machinery.

We lift ourselves by our own thought; we climb upon our vision of ourselves.

The first part of success is 'Get-to-it-iveness'; the second part of success is 'Stick-to-it-iveness'.

Wanted, a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say "No," though all the world say "Yes.

Whatever comes to us in life we create first in our mentality. As the building is a reality in all its details in the architects mind before a stone or brick is laid, so we create mentally everything which later becomes a reality in our achievement.

We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your ideal of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success.

Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hallmark of excellence.

This is the test of your manhood: How much is there left in you after you have lost everything outside of yourself?

Conquer yourself and you can conquer everything else.

Our thoughts and imaginations are the only real limits to our possibilities.

Obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small.

Work, love and play are the great balance wheels of man's being.

Real happiness is so simple that most people do not recognize it. It is derived from the simplest, the quietest, the most unpretentious things in the world.

People do not realise the immense value of utilising spare minutes.

One of the best strengtheners of character and developers of stamina ... is to assume the part you wish to play; to assert stoutly the possession of whatever you lack.

The successful men of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose.

Laughter brightens the eye, increases the perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the least-used cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or balance which we call health.

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes, - every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy.

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.

A woman who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes her work with the assurance of success magnetizes her condition. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe.

There is no medicine like hope.

Begin where you are; work where you are; the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success may be crowded with grand possibilities.

Absorb knowledge from every possible source and opportunity. Power gravitates to the man who knows how and why.

How can I develop myself into the grandest possible manhood?

The sculptor will chip off all unnecessary material to set free the angel. Nature will chip and pound us remorselessly to bring out our possibilities. She will strip us of wealth, humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, let us down from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thousand ways, if she can develop a little character. Everything must give way to that. Wealth is nothing, position is nothing, fame is nothing, manhood is everything.