A Quote by Orison Swett Marden

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.
So long as the man with ambition is a failure, the world will tell him to let go of his ideal; but when his ambition is realized, the world will praise him for the persistence and the determination that he manifested during his dark hours, and everybody will point to his life as an example for coming generations. This is invariably the rule. Therefore pay no attention to what the world says when you are down. Be determined to get up, to reach the highest goal you have in view, and you will.
No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In the highest confidence there is always a flavor of doubt--a feeling, half instinctive and half logical, that, after all, the scoundrel may have something up his sleeve.
In life, an abundance of confidence gives us higher motivation, persistence, and optimism and can allow us to accomplish things we otherwise might not have undertaken.
Be careful in dealing with a man who cares nothing for comfort or promotion, but is simply determined to do what he believes to be right. He is a dangerous uncomfortable enemy, because his body, which you can always conquer, gives you little purchase upon his soul.
No, I was never one of those positive people who believes he can have whatever he sets his sights on. I just kept working at it.
I am glad I am an optimist. The pessimist is half-licked before he starts. The optimist has won half the battle, the most important half that applies to himself, when he begins his approach to a subject with the proper mental attitude. The optimist may not understand, or if he understands he may not agree with, prevailing ideas; but he believes, yes, knows, that in the long run and in due course there will prevail whatever is right and best.
The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. . . . They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; - cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame.
Any man shall speak the better when he knows what others have said, and sometimes the consciousness of his inward knowledge gives a confidence to his outward behavior, which of all other is the best thing to grace a man in his carriage.
Half the battle is confidence. There are people who have great figures but have terrible confidence so you are not drawn to them because they seem down all the time.
Whatever thing a man sets his heart on...is his god; and if his god doesn't also happen to be the true and living God of Israel that man is laboring in idolatry.
The scriptures, for example, discredit an ancient philosophy that has come back into vogue in our day-the philosophy of Korihor that there are no absolute moral standards, that "every man prospers according to his genius, and that every man conquers according to his strength; and whatsoever a man does is no crime" and "that when a man is dead, that is the end thereof".
Business success is not determined by government policy. It's not determined by regulation. The people succeed in business have to overcome all the obstacles put in their way by people like Democrats and Obama. That's what Trump knows, how to overcome these guys, how to get the things they put in his way out of the way, while they don't even know it's happening. And that would go for much of the political commentariat, too, folks, that are totally immersed in politics and know nothing else, other than they swear allegiance to free markets, but that's about it.
The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle.
I would say wrestling gives you confidence. It gives you strength. It helps you learn discipline, and to know that you have to love the process and respect the process, and if you just keep going, you can accomplish anything.
At the beginning of a novel, a writer needs confidence, but after that what's required is persistence. These traits sound similar. They aren't. Confidence is what politicians, seducers and currency speculators have, but persistence is a quality found in termites. It's the blind drive to keep on working that persists after confidence breaks down.
In hard times, North Carolinians have shown that we bounce back. But that's not by chance. It's because we are determined. Determined to tough it out. To help each other, and leave no one behind. Determined to turn our obstacles into opportunities.
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