quotations about success
Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.
DAVID G. MYERS
Exploring Psychology
Success too often sanctions the worst and the wildest schemes of human ambition.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once; for all these successive failures induce a skill which is so much additional power working into the final achievement.... The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys.... Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Just and noble minds rejoice in other men's success.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
There was nothing worse ... than a loser who'd made it. It was just part of the way things worked--part of the complexity of life ... that sometimes somebody who absolutely deserved nothing more than to be one of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the dregs of society, lucked out into a position of wealth, power and admiration. At least people who were natural winners knew how to carry themselves in their pomp, whether their ascendancy had come through the luck of being born rich and powerful or the luck of being born ambitious and capable. Losers who'd made it always let the side down.... Their only use ... was as examples to be held up to those who complained about their lack of status or money or control over their lives: look, if this idiot can achieve something, so can anybody, so can you. So stop whining about being exploited and work harder.
IAIN M. BANKS
Surface Detail
The successful man is the one whose images correspond most closely to reality, because then his actions will lead to the results which he imagines. A man's failures depend upon the fact that his images do not correspond to reality, whether he is dealing with marriage, politics, business, or the horse races.
ERIC BERNE
The Mind in Action
Poverty, many can endure with dignity. Success, how few can carry off, even with decency and without baring their innermost infirmities before the public gaze!
ROBERT BONTINE CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM
Success and Other Sketches
Success is a magnet that draws many followers.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The certainty of succeeding makes the road easy.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
It is a great presumption to ascribe our successes to our own management, and not to esteem ourselves upon any blessing, rather as it is the bounty of heaven, than the acquisition of our own prudence.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, February 5, 1712
Success in business, as in life, is often largely just a matter of luck.
FELIX G. ROHATYN
Dealings: A Political and Financial Life
If we can once believe that success is possible, success becomes possible.
FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP
Success: A Course in Moral Instruction
Desperation is the surest road to success.
HARRY SOLOMON
"The Physics of Being Dick", 3rd Rock From the Sun
There are two kinds of success, or rather two kinds of ability displayed in the achievement of success. There is, first, the success either in big things or small things which comes to the man who has in him the natural power to do what no one else can do, and what no amount of training, no perseverance or will power, will enable any ordinary man to do. This success, of course, like every other kind of success, may be on a very big scale or on a small scale. The quality which the man possesses may be that which enables him to run a hundred yards in nine and three-fifths seconds, or to play ten separate games of chess at the same time blindfolded, or to add five columns of figures at once without effort, or to write the "Ode to a Grecian Urn," or to deliver the Gettysburg speech, or to show the ability of Frederick at Leuthen or Nelson at Trafalgar. No amount of training of body or mind would enable any good ordinary man to perform any one of these feats. Of course the proper performance of each implies much previous study or training, but in no one of them is success to be attained save by the altogether exceptional man who has in him the something additional which the ordinary man does not have. This is the most striking kind of success, and it can be attained only by the man who has in him the quality which separates him in kind no less than in degree from his fellows. But much the commoner type of success in every walk of life and in every species of effort is that which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the degree of development which he has given that quality. This kind of success is open to a large number of persons, if only they seriously determine to achieve it. It is the kind of success which is open to the average man of sound body and fair mind, who has no remarkable mental or physical attributes, but who gets just as much as possible in the way of work out of the aptitudes that he does possess. It is the only kind of success that is open to most of us. Yet some of the greatest successes in history have been those of this second class--when I call it second class I am not running it down in the least, I am merely pointing out that it differs in kind from the first class. To the average man it is probably more useful to study this second type of success than to study the first. From the study of the first he can learn inspiration, he can get uplift and lofty enthusiasm. From the study of the second he can, if he chooses, find out how to win a similar success himself.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
According to the most common idea among men, he that makes the most money is the most successful. The standard so often adopted to measure or weigh everything by a money value is a false one. Money has its uses. The lack of it is hard to bear. But they are not the highest and best powers that are called forth in the acquisition of money. To amass a fortune is not necessarily the highest success. To miss a fortune is not of necessity a dismal failure. Poverty and scanty means are in no way or sense desirable, but we would make very emphatic and press upon the attention of youth everywhere that man's success or happiness is not measured by his bank account.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
Success demands singleness of purpose.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership
Your intention sets the universe in motion. The universe flows in the direction of your intention, and so it is important to be clear on your exact intention in any situation. If you are absolutely clear as to your intent, your subconscious success mechanism will support you in getting there. Most people encounter problems in creating the kind of life they want because they have not clearly determined where they want to go, or visualized what it is going to look like when they get there. Those who lead purposeful, successful lives do so because they have set up in their mind a clear picture of what they want to create in their lives.
ROBERT ANTHONY
Beyond Positive Thinking
People who think achieving success is a linear A-to-Z process, a straight shot to the top, simply aren't in touch with reality. There are very few bona fide overnight success stories. It just doesn't work that way. Success appears to happen overnight because we all see stories in newspapers and on TV about previously unknown people who have suddenly become famous. But consider a sequoia tree that has been growing for several hundred years. Just because a television crew one day decides to do a story about that tree doesn't mean it didn't exist before.
DONALD TRUMP
How to Get Rich
Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna, or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.
BARBARA WALTERS
Newsweek, May 6, 1974