Quotes about success
page 23

George Soros photo
Ridley Pearson photo
Alfredo Di Stéfano photo

“Failure is a necessary part of success.”

Alfredo Di Stéfano (1926–2014) Argentine association football player

The Wit and Wisdom of Alfredo Di Stéfano Kindle Location 98.

Kurt Lewin photo
Joseph Addison photo

“Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 256 (24 December 1711)
Often only the first half of this statement is quoted
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Sukarno photo
Akio Morita photo

“There is no secret ingredient or hidden formula responsible for the success of the best Japanese companies.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 130.

Stanley A. McChrystal photo
Dan Balz photo
Margaret Sanger photo
Elia M. Ramollah photo

“Start from where the others have finished, those whom where successful and their results were acceptable. Useless repeating of a task is not suggested.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

The Great Master of Thought (Amen- Vol.3), Observing management

Éric Pichet photo

“In developped countries, successive governments have always acted like firemen putting out fires instead of architects designing new buildings. The tax loopholes they have created are responses to emotions provoked by a given event, or an attempt to ease social tension caused by taxpayer exasperation (and/or reflecting their power). Any rational global management policy must satisfy two imperatives: simplicity; and stability.”

Éric Pichet (1960) economist

General Theory of Social and Tax Expenditures and Proposals for Recasting the French System of Tax 'Loopholes' https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2841200 Article in Revue de Droit Fiscal n36 (2016).
Tax policy, Tax and Social Expenditures

Jay Samit photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Max Horkheimer photo
Ethan Nadelmann photo
Liam Fox photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“If the pages of this book contain some successful verse, the reader must excuse me the discourtesy of having usurped it first. Our nothingness differs little; it is a trivial and chance circumstance that you should be the reader of these exercises and I their author.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"To the Reader" ["A quien leyere"], preface to Fervor of Buenos Aires [Fervor de Buenos Aires] (1923)

Alan Hirsch photo
Abraham Cahan photo
James Randi photo
Chris Martin photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Grover Cleveland photo

“The trusts and combinations—the communism of pelf—whose machinations have prevented us from reaching the success we deserved, should not be forgotten nor forgiven.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

Letter to Representative Thomas C. Catchings (27 August 1894), reported in Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850–1908, ed. Allan Nevins (1933), p. 365

Walt Disney photo
Daniel Patrick Moynihan photo

“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) American politician

'Memorandum dated March 2003' in Steven Weisman ed., "Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary"

Barry Boehm photo
David Ogilvy photo
La Fayette Grover photo
Frederick William Robertson photo
Thomas Frank photo

“Thanks to its chokehold on the nation’s culture, liberalism is thus in power whether its politicians are elected or not; it rules over us even though Republicans have prevailed in six out of the nine presidential elections since 1968; even though Republicans presently control all three branches of government; even though the last of the big-name, forthright liberals of the old school (Humphrey, McGovern, Church, Bayhm, Culver, etc.) either died or went down to defeat in the seventies; and even though no Democratic presidential nominee has called himself a "liberal" since Walter Mondale. Liberalism is beyond politics, a tyrant that dominates our lives in countless ways great and small, and which is virtually incapable of being overthrown.Conservatism, on the other hand, is the doctrine of the oppressed majority. Conservatism does not defend some established order of things: It accuses; its rants; it points out hypocrisies and gleefully pounces on contradictions. While liberals use their control of the airwaves, newspapers, and schools to persecute average Americans — to ridicule the pious, flatter the shiftless, and indoctrinate the kids with all sorts of permissive nonsense — the Republicans are the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, the forgotten. They are always the underdog, always in rebellion against a haughty establishment, always rising up from below.All claims of the right, in other words, advance from victimhood. This is another trick the backlash has picked up from the left. Even though republicans legislate in the interests of society’s most powerful, and even though conservative social critics typically enjoy cushy sinecures at places like the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal, they rarely claim to speak on behalf of the wealthy of the winners in the social Darwinist struggle. Just like the leftists of the early twentieth century, they see themselves in revolt against a genteel tradition, rising up against a bankrupt establishment that will tolerate no backtalk.Conservatism, on the other hand, can never be powerful or successful, and backlashers revel in fantasies of their own marginality and persecution.”

Ibid.(pp. 119-120).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

Daniel McCallum photo
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan photo

“A woman who rejects motherhood, who refrains from being around the house, however successful her working life is, is deficient, is incomplete.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in "Turkey's Erdogan says childless women are 'incomplete'" http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/turkey-erdogan-childless-women-incomplete-160606042442710.html, Al Jazeera (June 6, 2016)

Peter L. Berger photo
Warren Farrell photo

“[Success as panacea and trap:] The less a man is willing to give up a sex object, the more he’ll be trapped into becoming a success object.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 134.

Henry John Stephen Smith photo

“So intimate is the union between Mathematics and Physics that probably by far the larger part of the accessions to our mathematical knowledge have been obtained by the efforts of mathematicians to solve the problems set to them by experiment, and to create for each successive class phenomena a new calculus or a new geometry, as the case might be, which might prove not wholly inadequate to the subtlety of nature. Sometimes the mathematician has been before the physicist, and it has happened that when some great and new question has occurred to the experimentalist or the observer, he has found in the armory of the mathematician the weapons which he needed ready made to his hand. But much oftener, the questions proposed by the physicist have transcended the utmost powers of the mathematics of the time, and a fresh mathematical creation has been needed to supply the logical instrument requisite to interpret the new enigma.”

Henry John Stephen Smith (1826–1883) mathematician

As quoted in The Century: A Popular Quarterly (1874) ed. Richard Watson Gilder, Vol. 7, pp. 508-509, https://books.google.com/books?id=ceYGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA508 "Relations of Mathematics to Physics". Earlier quote without citation in Nature, Volume 8 (1873), page 450.
Also quoted partially in Michael Grossman and Robert Katz, Calculus http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/mb?a=listis;c=216746186|Non-Newtonian (1972) p. iv. ISBN 0912938013.

Amir Taheri photo

“It might come as a surprise to many, but the truth is that Islam today no longer has a living and evolving theology. In fact, with few exceptions, Islam’s last genuine theologians belong to the early part of the 19th century. Go to any mosque anywhere, whether it is in New York or Mecca, and you are more likely to hear a political sermon rather than a theological reflection. In the highly politicized version of Islam promoted by Da’esh, al Qaeda, the Khomeinists in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Boko Haram in Nigeria, God plays a cameo role at best. Deprived of its theological moorings, today’s Islam is a wayward vessel under the captaincy of ambitious adventurers leading it into sectarian feuds, wars and terrorism. Many, especially Muslims in Europe and North America, use it as a shibboleth defining identity and even ethnicity. A glance at Islam’s history in the past 200 years highlights the rapid fading of theologians. Today, Western scholars speak of Wahhabism as if that meant a theological school. In truth, Muhammad Abdul-Wahhabi was a political figure. His supposedly theological writings consist of nine pages denouncing worship at shrines of saints. Nineteenth-century “reformers” such as Jamaleddin Assadabadi and Rashid Rada were also more interested in politics than theology. The late Ayatollah Khomeini, sometimes regarded as a theologian, was in fact a politician wearing clerical costume. His grandson has collected more than 100,000 pages of his writings and speeches and poetry. Of these, only 11 pages, commenting on the first and shortest verse of the Koran, could be regarded as dabbling in theology, albeit not with great success.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"The mad dream of a dead empire that unites Islamic rebels" http://nypost.com/2014/06/14/the-mad-dream-of-a-dead-empire-that-unites-islamic-rebels/, New York Post (June 14, 2014).
New York Post

Tom Lehrer photo
Madonna photo

“Hollywood is about playing the game, and I can't think of any successful actresses who didn't play the game. there's a lot more renegades in the music business, from Patti Smith to Janis Joplin.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Aperture Magazine 1999 http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-interviews-articles/aperture-magazine-summer-1999

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Leonid Kantorovich photo
Albert Speer photo
James C. Collins photo

“Here then we see God’s way of success in our work, whatever it may be – a trinity of prayer, faith and patience.”

James O. Fraser (1886–1938) missionary to China, inventor of Tibeto-Burman Nosu alphabet

16 January 1916 Source: Geraldine Taylor. Behind the Ranges: The Life-changing Story of J.O. Fraser. Singapore: OMF International (IHQ) Ltd., 1998, 151.

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Frank Chodorov photo
Frank Popper photo
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo

“Lord Byron, who was writing the third canto of Childe Harold, was the only one among us who put his thoughts upon paper. These, as he brought them successively to us, clothed in all the light and harmony of poetry, seemed to stamp as divine the glories of heaven and earth, whose influences we partook with him.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer

Introduction http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/1831v1/intro.html to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein

Paul Allen photo

“In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.”

Paul Allen (1953–2018) American inventor, investor and philanthropist

Idea Man (2012)

Scott Pruitt photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo

“I want to add that no matter how well you learn to play the political game, you won’t make a lastin’ success of it if you're a drinkin’ man. p. 77”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 19, The Successful Politician Does Not Drink

Thierry Henry photo

“Being seen as the best striker in Europe doesn't spur me on—it's helping my team to success. That's my only aim.”

Thierry Henry (1977) French association football player

Attributed
Source: Thierry Henry quotes http://expertfootball.com/gossip/quotes.php?search=Thierry_henry,

Charles Lyell photo
Raymond Chandler photo

“Success makes some crimes honorable.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 326
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Gordon R. Dickson photo
Lester B. Pearson photo

“When I came back to Ottawa I found myself faced with a very difficult parliamentary situation… I think it is fair to say that Mr St Laurent, on the basis of private discussions with the Opposition leaders, did not expect any serious division in the House of Commons over our policies on Suez. However, bitter division there was, and we were condemned strongly for deserting our two mother countries. The Conservative attack was led by Howard Green (who in June 1959 was to become Secretary of State for External Affairs). Green accused us of being the "chore boy" of the United States, of being a better friend to Nasser than to Britain and France, and claimed that our government "by its actions in the Suez crisis, has made this month of November 1956, the most disgraceful period for Canada in the history of this nation," and that it was "high time Canada had a government which will not knife Canada's best friends in the back." Any feeling of exaltation and conceit or euphoria at our success in avoiding a general war in the Middle East (if in fact we had avoided it by our actions) was dissipated for me by the vigour of the assaults on my conduct, my wisdom, my rectitude, my integrity, and my everything else by an embattled Conservative Opposition. It was a very vigorous debate reflected in the general election of the next year. But I have always believed, and I think the great weight of Canadian opinion strongly approved what we had done. Further, I am absolutely certain and will remain certain in my own mind that the New Commonwealth would have soon shattered over the issue had the British not backed down.”

Lester B. Pearson (1897–1972) 14th Prime Minister of Canada

Memoirs, Volume Two

Vladimir Horowitz photo
Angela Merkel photo

“I understand why he has to do this; to prove he's a man… He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

As quoted in "The Quiet German" http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/quiet-german (1 December 2014), by George Paker, The New Yorker.
2014

Eugéne Ionesco photo
Mo Yan photo
Joseph Massad photo
Warren Farrell photo
Theodor Mommsen photo

“All the Hellenistic States had thus been completely subjected to the protectorate of Rome, and the whole empire of Alexander the Great had fallen to the Roman commonwealth just as if the city had inherited it from his heirs. From all sides kings and ambassadors flocked to Rome to congratulate her; they showed that fawning is never more abject than when kings are in the antechamber…w:Polybius dates from the battle of Pydna the full establishment of the universal empire of Rome. It was in fact the last battle in which a civilized state confronted Rome in the field on a footing of equality with her as a great power; all subsequent struggles were rebellions or wars with peoples beyond the pale of the Romano-Greek civilization -- with barbarians, as they were called. The whole civilized world thenceforth recognized in the Roman senate the supreme tribunal, whose commissions decided in the last resort between kings and nations; and to acquire its language and manners foreign princes and youths of quality resided in Rome. A clear and earnest attempt to get rid of this dominion was in reality made only once -- by the great Mithradates of Pontus. The battle of pydna, moreover, marks the last occasion on which the senate still adhered to the state-maxim that that they should, if possible, hold no possessions and maintain no garrisons beyond the Italian seas, but should keep the numerous states dependent on them in order by a mere political supremacy. The aim aim of their policy was that these states should neither decline into utter weakness and anarchy, as had nevertheless happened in Greece nor emerge out of their half-free position into complete independence, as Macedonia had attempted to do without success. No state was to be allowed to utterly perish, but no one was to be permitted to stand on its own resources… Indications of a change of system, and of an increasing disinclination on the part of Rome to tolerate by its side intermediate states even in such independence as was possible for them, were clearly given in the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy after the battle of Pydna, the more and more frequent and more unavoidable the intervention in the internal affairs of the petty Greek states through their misgovernment, and their political and social anarchy, the disarming of Macedonia, where the Northern forntier at any rate urgently required a defence different from that of mere posts; and, lastly, the introduction of the payment of land-tax to Rome from Macedonia and Illyria, were so many symptoms of the approaching conversion of the client states into subjects of Rome.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The Changing of the Relationship between Rome and Her Client-States
The History Of Rome, Volume 2. Chapter 10. "The Third Macedonian War" Translated by W.P.Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 2

Clayton M. Christensen photo

“[T]he prediction of [my disruption] theory would be that Apple won't succeed with the iPhone. They've launched an innovation that the existing players in the industry are heavily motivated to beat: It's not [truly] disruptive. History speaks pretty loudly on that, that the probability of success is going to be limited.”

Clayton M. Christensen (1952–2020) Mormon academic

"Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma says iPhone will fail" in Jeremy's Blog (28 June 2007) http://jeremy.linuxquestions.org/2007/06/28/clayton-christensens-innovators-dilemma-says-iphone-will-fail
2000s

C. D. Broad photo
Heidi Klum photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
John Steinbeck photo
Clement Attlee photo

“We are told that we have to accept the Treaty of Rome. I have read the Treaty of Rome pretty carefully, and it expresses an outlook entirely different from our own. It may be that I am insular, but I value our Parliamentary outlook, an outlook which has extended throughout the Commonwealth. That is not the same position that holds on the Continent of Europe. No one of these principal countries in the Common Market has been very successful in running Parliamentary institutions: Germany, hardly any experience; Italy, very little; France, a swing between a dictatorship and more or less anarchic Parliament, and not very successfully. As I read the Treaty of Rome, the whole position means that we shall enter a federation which is composed in an entirely different way. I do not say it is the wrong way. But it is not our way. In this set-up it is the official who really puts up all the proposals; the whole of the planning is done by officials. It seems to me that the Ministers come in at a later stage—and if there is anything like a Federal Parliament, at a later stage still. I do not think that that is the way this country has developed, or wishes to develop. I am all for working in with our Continental friends. I was one of those who worked to build up NATO; I have worked for European integration. But that is a very different thing from bringing us into a close association which, I may say, is not one for defence, or even just for foreign policy. The fact is that if the designs behind the Common Market are carried out, we are bound to be affected in every phase of our national life. There would be no national planning, except under the guidance of Continental planning—we shall not be able to deal with our own problems; we shall not be able to build up the country in the way we want to do, so far as I can see. I think we shall be subject to overall control and planning by others. That is my objection.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1962/nov/08/britain-and-the-common-market in the House of Lords on the British application to join the Common Market (8 November 1962).
1960s

“Success is whatever humiliation everyone has agreed to compete for.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#135
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

A. Wayne Wymore photo

“All that can be done pedagogically is to show the student how some phenomena have been modeled, let him model some phenomena under supervision, and then hope he will be successful on his own—or know enough to secure assistance.”

A. Wayne Wymore (1927–2011) American mathematician

Source: A Mathematical Theory of Systems Engineering (1967), p. 68 About the teaching of modeling: As cited in: J.C. Heckman (1973, p. 5)".

Bryan Caplan photo
John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher photo

“Big risks bring big success!”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

Letter to Churchill, dated 25/2/1912, quoted in The World Crisis, Vol 1, 1911-14 (1923), Churchill, Thornton Butterworth (London), p. 107.

Richard Dawkins photo

“… you need more than luck to navigate successfully through a thousand sieves in succession.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

River out of Eden (1995)

Hendrik Lorentz photo

“One has been led to the conception of electrons, i. e. of extremely small particles, charged with electricity, which are present in immense numbers in all ponderable bodies, and by whose distribution and motions we endeavor to explain all electric and optical phenomena that are not confined to the free ether…. according to our modern views, the electrons in a conducting body, or at least a certain part of them, are supposed to be in a free state, so that they can obey an electric force by which the positive particles are driven in one, and the negative electrons in the opposite direction. In the case of a non-conducting substance, on the contrary, we shall assume that the electrons are bound to certain positions of equilibrium. If, in a metallic wire, the electrons of one kind, say the negative ones, are travelling in one direction, and perhaps those of the opposite kind in the opposite direction, we have to do with a current of conduction, such as may lead to a state in which a body connected to one end of the wire has an excess of either positive or negative electrons. This excess, the charge of the body as a whole, will, in the state of equilibrium and if the body consists of a conducting substance, be found in a very thin layer at its surface.
In a ponderable dielectric there can likewise be a motion of the electrons. Indeed, though we shall think of each of them as haying a definite position of equilibrium, we shall not suppose them to be wholly immovable. They can be displaced by an electric force exerted by the ether, which we conceive to penetrate all ponderable matter… the displacement will immediately give rise to a new force by which the particle is pulled back towards its original position, and which we may therefore appropriately distinguish by the name of elastic force. The motion of the electrons in non-conducting bodies, such as glass and sulphur, kept by the elastic force within certain bounds, together with the change of the dielectric displacement in the ether itself, now constitutes what Maxwell called the displacement current. A substance in which the electrons are shifted to new positions is said to be electrically polarized.
Again, under the influence of the elastic forces, the electrons can vibrate about their positions of equilibrium. In doing so, and perhaps also on account of other more irregular motions, they become the centres of waves that travel outwards in the surrounding ether and can be observed as light if the frequency is high enough. In this manner we can account for the emission of light and heat. As to the opposite phenomenon, that of absorption, this is explained by considering the vibrations that are communicated to the electrons by the periodic forces existing in an incident beam of light. If the motion of the electrons thus set vibrating does not go on undisturbed, but is converted in one way or another into the irregular agitation which we call heat, it is clear that part of the incident energy will be stored up in the body, in other terms [words] that there is a certain absorption. Nor is it the absorption alone that can be accounted for by a communication of motion to the electrons. This optical resonance, as it may in many cases be termed, can likewise make itself felt even if there is no resistance at all, so that the body is perfectly transparent. In this case also, the electrons contained within the molecules will be set in motion, and though no vibratory energy is lost, the oscillating particles will exert an influence on the velocity with which the vibrations are propagated through the body. By taking account of this reaction of the electrons we are enabled to establish an electromagnetic theory of the refrangibility of light, in its relation to the wave-length and the state of the matter, and to form a mental picture of the beautiful and varied phenomena of double refraction and circular polarization.
On the other hand, the theory of the motion of electrons in metallic bodies has been developed to a considerable extent…. important results that have been reached by Riecke, Drude and J. J. Thomson… the free electrons in these bodies partake of the heat-motion of the molecules of ordinary matter, travelling in all directions with such velocities that the mean kinetic energy of each of them is equal to that of a gaseous molecule at the same temperature. If we further suppose the electrons to strike over and over again against metallic atoms, so that they describe irregular zigzag-lines, we can make clear to ourselves the reason that metals are at the same time good conductors of heat and of electricity, and that, as a general rule, in the series of the metals, the two conductivities change in nearly the same ratio. The larger the number of free electrons, and the longer the time that elapses between two successive encounters, the greater will be the conductivity for heat as well as that for electricity.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Source: The Theory of Electrons and Its Applications to the Phenomena of Light and Radiant Heat (1916), Ch. I General principles. Theory of free electrons, pp. 8-10

Alice Moore Hubbard photo
Stanley A. McChrystal photo
Sun Myung Moon photo
Hovhannes Bagramyan photo
Andrew Tobias photo

“No wonder lawyers, who control the legal system, have fought so hard, and with great success, against "no fault" insurance. No fault, no lawsuits. No lawsuits, no lunch.”

Andrew Tobias (1947) American journalist

Source: The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know (1982), Chapter 10, Too Many Lawyers, p. 172.

Madhuri Dixit photo
River Phoenix photo
Louis Brandeis photo
William H. McNeill photo
Warren Buffett photo

“Success in investing doesn't correlate with I. Q. once you're above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

As quoted in Homespun Wisdom from the "Oracle of Omaha" by Amy Stone in BusinessWeek (5 June 1999) http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_27/b3636006.htm

Bob Dylan photo

“There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Adam Goldstein photo
William Stanley Jevons photo
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