quotations about success
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
The man who arrives young believes that he exercises his will because his star is shining. The man who only asserts himself at thirty has a balanced idea of what willpower and fate have each contributed, the one who gets there at forty is liable to put the emphasis on will alone.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
American Cavalcade, October 1937
A man may be a merchant prince and in commercial prosperity a grand success, but if lust of accumulation has eaten out all the finer qualities of the soul, the sympathy and affection for others, the desire to make others happy, the determination to live for God and the welfare of humanity, he is a lamentable failure.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
Success isn't outscoring someone, it's the peace of mind that comes from self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best. Success is a journey, not a destination--half the fun is getting there.
GITA BELLIN
A Sharing of Completion and Celebration
The man who succeeds must always in mind or imagination live, move, think, and act as if he had gained that success, or he never will gain it.
PRENTICE MULFORD
attributed, Success: A Book of Ideals, Helps, and Examples
Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success -- yours or his.
FRANKLIN P. JONES
Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1953
He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.
HORACE
Epistles
Great success is a great temptation.
THEODORE PARKER
"A Sermon of the Moral Dangers incident to Prosperity"
The mighty credit, which is a mantle of cloth of gold and finest silver spun ... by the greatest of the angels of men--Success.
LEW WALLACE
Ben-Hur
Desperation is the surest road to success.
HARRY SOLOMON
"The Physics of Being Dick", 3rd Rock From the Sun
To succeed in life one needs two things -- influence and a lucky star.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
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
Even success needs its consolations.
GEORGE ELIOT
letter to J. W. Cross, June 3, 1876
I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.
WALT DISNEY
attributed, Unleash the Billionaire Within
Many a man can make a success of everything but himself.
EDGAR GUEST
Home Rhymes
To attain "success" without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.
NATHANIEL BRANDEN
The Power of Self-Esteem
We often set up as a model the man with a large fortune, rather than the man of integrity of soul, and urge our youth to emulate him. If fortune fails to smile on us in filling our coffers, we count that we have not made a success in life.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
If you would revenge yourself on those who have slighted you, BE SUCCESSFUL; it is a bitter satire on their want of judgment; to show that you can do without them, a galling wound to the self-love of proud, inflated people; but you must reckon on their hatred, as they will never forgive you.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
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