Quotes about success
page 25

“Secular movements… try to avoid myths and rites…. How shall Christianity face them? Shall Christianity tell them: Come to us, we are a better religion?… Shall we make of the Christian message a success story, and tell them, like advertisers: try it with us, and you will see how important Christianity is for everybody? Some missionaries and some ministers and some Christian laymen use these methods. They show a total misunderstanding of Christianity. The apostle who was a missionary and a minister and a layman all at once says something different. He says: No particular religion matters, neither ours nor yours. But I want to tell you that something has happened that matters, something that judges you and me, your religion and my religion. A New Creation has occurred, a New Being has appeared; and we are all asked to participate in it.”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Chap. 2: The New Being
The New Being (1955)

Religion, Appearance

“Systems thinking means the ability to see the synergy of the whole rather than just the separate elements of a system and to learn to reinforce or change whole system patterns. Many people have been trained to solve problems by breaking a complex system, such as an organization, into discrete parts and working to make each part perform as well as possible. However, the success of each piece does not add up to the success of the whole. to the success of the whole. In fact, sometimes changing one part to make it better actually makes the whole system function less effectively.”

Richard L. Daft (1964) American sociologist

Source: The Leadership Experience, 2008, p. 141.

People, Problem, Thinking, Learning

“If we have real, creative destruction here with Trump, and we have Armageddon or worse, out of the ruins will come new successes. New movements. And eventually, new rackets. And I'll be in on them. I admit it, I'm a racketeer.”

Mike Murphy (political consultant) (1962) American political consultant

As quoted in "Debriefing Mike Murphy" https://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/debriefing-mike-murphy (18 March 2016), by Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard 2010s

“The proletariat thus shared its dictatorship with nobody. As to the question of the "majority", this never troubled Lenin much. In an article "Constitutional Illusions" (Aug. 1917; Works, vol. 25, p. 201) he wrote: "in time of revolution it is not enough to ascertain the ‘ will of the majority’ – you must prove to be stronger at the decisive moment and at the decisive place; you must win … We have seen innumerable examples of the better organized, more politically conscious and better armed minority forcing its will upon the majority and defeating it." (pg. 503) Trotsky, however, answers questions [in The Defence of Terrorism] that Lenin evaded or ignored. "Where is your guarantee, certain wise men ask us, that it is just your party that expresses the interests of historical development? Destroying or driving underground the other parties, you have thereby prevented their political competition with you, and consequently you have deprived yourselves of the possibility of testing your line of action." Trotsky replies: "This idea is dictated by a purely liberal conception of the course of the revolution. In a period in which all antagonisms assume an open character; and the political struggle swiftly passes into a civil war, the ruling party has sufficient material standard by which to test its line of action, without the possible circulation of Menshevik papers. Noske crushes the Communists, but they grow. We have suppressed the Mensheviks and the S. R. s [Socialist Republics] … and they have disappeared. This criterion is sufficient for us" (p. 101). This is one of the most enlightening theoretical formulations of Bolshevism, from which it appears that the "rightness" of a historical movement or a state is to be judged by whether its use of violence is successful. Noske did not succeed in crushing the German Communists, but Hitler did; it would thus follow from Trotsky’ s rule that Hitler "expressed the interests of historical development". Stalin liquidated the Trotskyists in Russia, and they disappeared – so evidently Stalin, and not Trotsky, stood for historical progress.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

pg. 510
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age

Men, War, Idea, Question

“I am going to give you for what it may be worth what I think are some of the qualifications a public administrator should have. I have tried to think of it in terms of personality, of training, of experience, and in none of those terms have I been able to discover what to me is a satisfactory answer. And no doubt the one thing that does satisfy my searching is susceptible of being termed as an oversimplification, but as I have looked about for administrators over a quarter of a century, I think I have discovered one thing that characterizes those that have been successful in many administrative positions of different types. It characterizes those that have been successful so far as their administrative work is concerned in the position of Presidents of the United States and Governors of states and Mayors of cities. It characterizes equally those that have been successful as the head of a finance department, the head of a unit of the health department, the head of a minor division in the police department, and the foreman of a garbage collecting gang. That is, to be a successful administrator one must have a catholic curiosity.”

Louis Brownlow (1879–1963) American mayor

Source: "What Is an Administrator?" 1936, p. 6 ; As cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 658

Health, Search, Thinking, Personality

“The man in the street, and also the philosopher K. Marbe, believe that after a run of seventeen heads tail becomes more probable. This argument has nothing to do with imperfections of physical coins; it endows nature with memory, or, in our terminology, it denies the stochastic independence of successive trials. Marbe's theory cannot be refuted by logic but is rejected because of empirical support.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter VI, The Binomial And The Poisson Distributions, p. 147.

Support, Nature, Memory

“From the beginning, I knew the public reaction to my decisions would be colored by whether there was another attack. If none happened, whatever I did would probably look like an overreaction. If we were attacked again, people would demand to know why I hadn't done more. That is the nature of the presidency. Perceptions are shaped by the clarity of hindsight. In the moment of decision, you don't have that advantage. On 9/11, I vowed that I would do what it took to protect America, within the Constitution and laws of our nation. History can debate the decisions I made, the policies I chose, and the tools I left behind. But there can be no debate about one fact: After the nightmare of September 11, America went seven and a half years without another successful terrorist attack on our soil. If I had to summarize my most meaningful accomplishment as president in one sentence, that would be it.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. 181

People, Law, Color, History

“Of course I’m delighted that Fun Home has met with such success, but it still strikes me as very unlikely that an odd, cerebral story about a lesbian and her closeted gay suicidal mortician father would have struck a chord with anyone but me.”

Alison Bechdel (1960) American cartoonist, author

on her breakout graphic novel http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article6914181.ece?token=null&offset=108&page=10 Other

Home, Suicide

“There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind … the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed.”

Duke Ellington (1899–1974) American jazz musician, composer and band leader

Where Is Jazz Going? Music Journal (1962) Reproduced in The Duke Ellington Reader, ISBN 978-0-19-509391-9.

Music

“Yes, it was a success. I know it. It was almost wholly unprepared. I had a success, my dear Nicolson, at the moment I most needed it. Now is the time to go.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Harold Nicolson's diary entry (10 December 1936) recording Baldwin's comments after listening to Baldwin's speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1936/dec/10/members-of-the-house-of-commons on the Abdication of Edward VIII. Quoted in Nigel Nicolson (ed.), Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters. 1930-1939 (London: Collins, 1966), p. 286. 1936

Time

“Capital has just become completely disconnected from the people. Labour was born in the world to resist the domination of capital. That’s our thing. So we say that five percent of the bailout should be used to recapitalise local banks. It’s our money anyway. Those local banks should only lend in the area that they’re in. Germany’s a very successful, a very, very successful example of how this can work.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Interview with Australian Fabians: http://www.fabians.org.au/interview_with_maurice_glasman

Money, People, World

“The success of the missions need not have been so meagre but for certain factors which may be discussed now. In the first place, the missionary brought with him an attitude of moral superiority and a belief in his own exclusive righteousness. The doctrine of the monopoly of truth and revelation, as claimed by William of Aubruck to Batu Khan when he said 'he that believeth not shall be condemned by God', is alien to the Hindu and Buddhist mind. To them the claim of any sect that it alone possesses the truth and others shall be `condemned' has always seemed unreasonable. Secondly the association of Christian missionary work with aggressive imperialism introduced political complications. National sentiment could not fail to look upon missionary activity as inimical to the country's interests. That diplomatic pressure, extra‑territoriality and sometimes support of gun‑boats had been resorted to in the interests of the foreign missionaries could not be easily forgotten. Thirdly, the sense of European superiority which the missionaries perhaps unconsciously inculcated produced also its reaction. Even during the days of unchallenged European political supremacy no Asian people accepted the cultural superiority of the West. The educational activities of the missionaries stressing the glories of European culture only led to the identification of the work of the missions with Western cultural aggression.”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

God, People, Truth, Education

“I make sure that they photograph everything they do. And they have to have a portfolio to graduate. You know, there’s no formula for success out there, but what works is: learn how [to photograph], photograph everything you do and you put those photographs in front of people that can help hire you. That works.”

Tom Savini (1946) American actor, stuntman, director and makeup artist

People, Learning, Help

“People ridiculously overvalue aesthetics and beauty when evaluating products. It's one of the reasons iPods, and, for that matter, Keanu Reeves, are so successful.”

Joel Spolsky (1965) American blogger

"The Road to FogBugz 4.0: Part IV" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogBugzIV.html

People, Beauty

“I know of no well-directed attempts of this kind, except in the ancient family of the Bickerstaffs, who are said to have been very successful in whitening the skins and increasing the height of their race by prudent marriages, particularly by that very judicious cross with Maud, the milk- maid, by which some capital defects in the constitutions of the family were corrected.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter IX, paragraph 14, lines 22-27 ( see also eugenics)

Marriage, Family

“I was born in the heart of the Great American Food Machine. From childhood on it was expected that I would someday take over and run what has become the world's largest ice cream company—Baskin-Robbins. Year after year I was groomed and prepared for the task, given an opportunity to live the Great American Dream… There is a sweeter and deeper American dream than the one I turned down. It is the dream of a success in which all beings share because it is founded on a reverence for life. A dream of a society at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all life forms. A dream of a people living in accord with the laws of Creation, cherishing and caring for the natural environment, conserving nature instead of destroying it. A dream of a society that is truly healthy, practicing a wise and compassionate stewardship of a balanced ecosystem.”

John Robbins book Diet for a New America

Introduction
Diet for a New America (1987)

Life, People, World, Peace

“The U. S. government needs to learn from successful private businesses that run an effective and efficient operation in serving their customers and outwitting their competitors.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

Business, Learning

“The key to a successful restaurant is dressing girls in degrading clothes.”

Michael O'Donoghue (1940–1994) American actor and writer

Mr. Mike's America: A Comic's Trek with SNL's First Head Writer (1983)

Girl, Clothes

“Enterprise Engineering is not a single methodology, but a sophisticated synthesis of the most important and successful of today's change methods. "Enterprise Engineering" first explains in detail all the critical disciplines (including continuous improvement, radical reinvention of business processes, enterprise redesign, and strategic visioning). It then illustrates how to custom-design the right combination of these change methods for your organization's specific needs.”

James Martin (author) (1933–2013) British information technology consultant and writer

Book summary
The great transition (1995)

Business, Change

“If I die prematurely, at any rate I shall be saved from being bored by my own success.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Compensation
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part X - The Position of a HomoUnius Libri

“If those who despise us stone us as prophets, they must listen to us as prophets. If they curse us as sorcerers, they must learn to curse from us, as sorcerers.
Let us enlighten the young, and let us be condemned for corrupting the young, like Socrates. Let us awaken the old before they sleep forever, though they must read us in secret like the Kabbalah. […] The difficulties and successes of our books and magazines, and the rejection and misinterpretation of the films made from our ideas—are the flounderings of the human mind upon the Paleozoic shore. We are the sand in its gills; let's not lose our grit.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Guest of Honor speech at Aussiecon Two (August 1985), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

Secret, Books, Idea, Sleep

“The new, independent women should have no need to exploit a man's vestigial sense of chivalry. If they are truly suited to compete with men, they should be able to do so without special rules, privileges and protections. Men should not have to curb their behavior so that women can achieve. If "equality" were truly desired, men would never have to ask, "Mother, may I?"… To ask men to radically alter their behavior to facilitate the success of complete stranger with whom they may well be in direct or indirect competition is absurd. That's not "equality" any more than asking a boxer to fight with one hand tied behind his back and calling it a "fair fight."”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

And yet this is exactly what feminists ask of men... Men need to reject this.
"Mother May I" Masculinity
A Sky Without Eagles (2014)

Women, Men, Behavior, Sense

“You know, these things interested me before I became a businessman and I kind of neglected them during twenty, twenty-five years, while I was engaged in making money, because running a hedge fund takes, you know, a hundred percent of your attention on Saturday morning, and so I didn't get involved in these issues very much. It's only when I was rather successful at it and I've made enough money for my personal needs and to look after my family that we established this interest and, by now, it is more important to me than my business.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Interview with Mark Shapiro (2000)

Money, Family, Business, Personality

“Success is a public affair. Failure is a private funeral.”

Rosalind Russell (1907–1976) actress from the United States

Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2001 ed): Art. Rosalind Russell p. 383

Failure

“A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Speech in the United States Senate (9 May 1966)

Peace

“It is remarkable that India became a democracy in modern times, because the long-lasting Hindu civilisation at first sight was innately hostile to the ideas that all adults should have an equal vote, irrespective of their caste, and that all adults should be able to share in the social mobility which was part of the democratic spirit. But to graft exotic new trees onto old, when there seemed little hope of success, and to watch them grow vigorously, is not a rare experience in human institutions.”

Geoffrey Blainey book A Short History of the World

A Short History of the World (2000)

Hostility, Hope, Democracy, Idea

“I am very much a Republican. I think that Richard Nixon is a great man and that he is very dedicated to what he does. I had the pleasure of meeting him when I attended the Republican National Convention in Miami. You can really tell that he is willing to go out of his way to help the American people. I am proud to support him as president and I wish him all the success in the world and may I also say that it was an honor to endorse him.”

Laraine Day (1920–2007) American actress

CBS News, November 5, 1968.

People, Pleasure, World, Way

“The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

The Good Man

Hate, Evil, Time

“Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won't know it, and may even vigorously deny it. Accepting that a virus might be difficult to detect in your own mind, what tell-tale signs might you look out for? I shall answer by imaging how a medical textbook might describe the typical symptoms of a sufferer”

Richard Dawkins book Viruses of the Mind

arbitrarily assumed to be male
Viruses of the Mind (1993)

Suffering, Chance

“Peace is victorious always and for ever. Do you remember that aggression gained success and was not crushed by the last blow? Aggression, whether collective or unilateral, is inevitably to be crushed. If you just glance at courts and judges you will see that these courts and judges were formed to crush aggression or anyone who things of aggression. These courts and judges are only working for the sake of peace and ending aggression. This noble idea should prevail all over the world.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

Speech delivered at the second congress of the peace partisans (April 14, 1959).
Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)

World, Peace, Idea, Victory

“Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning, and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection, we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.”

Jared Diamond book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

On the fates of past societies facing problems of sustainability, page 522
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)

Failure

“Academic excellency and moral of students should be achieved with integration because good morals directly will shape a conducive environment for students to achieve success.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

SMJK Keat Hwa Excellence Award Day 2017 https://www.bharian.com.my/node/283525

“I went to a Harvard seminar in Sydney recently and the name of the seminar was 'Family businesses: successes and pitfalls'. The lecturer there said a typical family business is one where the founder starts it, the second generation builds it up and the third generation blows it up. Now there is a lot of truth in that.”

Hari Punja (1936) Fijian businessman

Interview with the Fiji Times http://www.Fijitimes.com, 25 September 2005 (excerpts)

Truth, Family, Business

“It is very clear in Poland that the non-restrictive anti-smoking campaign has been a huge success, and it seems that conclusions should be drawn from it.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulai, Jerzy (20 February 2009): Wódka groźniejsza niż egzotyczne ziółka http://www.monar.net.pl/Article8247.html. Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish).

“Mahmood having reached Tahnesur before the Hindoos had time to take measures for its defence, the city was plundered, the idols broken, and the idol Jugsom was sent to Ghizny to be trodden under foot…Mahmood having refreshed his troops, and understanding that at some distance stood the rich city of Mutra [Mathura], consecrated to Krishn-Vasdew, whom the Hindoos venerate as an emanation of God, directed his march thither and entering it with little opposition from the troops of the Raja of Delhy, to whom it belonged, gave it up to plunder. He broke down or burned all the idols, and amassed a vast quantity of gold and silver, of which the idols were mostly composed. He would have destroyed the temples also, but he found the labour would have been excessive; while some say that he was averted from his purpose by their admirable beauty. He certainly extravagantly extolled the magnificence of the buildings and city in a letter to the governor of Ghizny, in which the following passage occurs: "There are here a thousand edifices as firm as the faith of the faithful; most of them of marble, besides innumerable temples; nor is it likely that this city has attained its present condition but at the expense of many millions of deenars, nor could such another be constructed under a period of two centuries."…The King tarried in Mutra 20 days; in which time the city suffered greatly from fire, beside the damage it sustained by being pillaged. At length he continued his march along the course of a stream on whose banks were seven strong fortifications, all of which fell in succession: there were also discovered some very ancient temples, which, according to the Hindoos, had existed for 4000 years. Having sacked these temples and forts, the troops were led against the fort of Munj…The King, on his return, ordered a magnificent mosque to be built of marble and granite, of such beauty as struck every beholder with astonishment, and furnished it with rich carpets, and with candelabras and other ornaments of silver and gold. This mosque was universally known by the name of the Celestial Bride. In its neighbourhood the King founded an university, supplied with a vast collection of curious books in various languages. It contained also a museum of natural curiosities. For the maintenance of this establishment he appropriated a large sum of money, besides a sufficient fund for the maintenance of the students, and proper persons to instruct youth in the arts and sciences…The King, in the year AH 410 (AD 1019), caused an account of his exploits to be written and sent to the Caliph, who ordered it to be read to the people of Bagdad, making a great festival upon the occasion, expressive of his joy at the propagation of the faith.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, pp. 27-37.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

Money, God, People, Books

“What I have learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 10, The Drunkard's Walk, p. 217

Learning, Chance

“This is an historic moment. We have in this past year made great progress in ending the long era of conflict and cold war. We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U. N.'s founders. We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

WAR IN THE GULF: THE PRESIDENT; Transcript of the Comments by Bush on the Air Strikes Against the Iraqis http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE2DF1F3AF934A25752C0A967958260 The New York Times. January 17, 1991 (NYT transcript of Bush speech from the Oval office January 16, 1991, (Eastern time) two hours after air strikes began in Iraq and Kuwait.)

War, People, World, Law

“They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Statement of 1991, during the fall of USSR. http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1991/19910604-1.html

Failure

“I warmly second the advice of the wisest of men—"Don't be ambitious; don't be at all too desirous to success; be loyal and modest." Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

Men

“The neologism âdivâsi constitutes one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in modern history.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Who is a Hindu, (2001)

History

“The power of attending to what is spoken, or in other words the power of listening, is one of the most useful habits that we can acquire; it keeps the mind active, and we can thus learn not only by hearing, but by reading and reflection, by fixing our minds steadily on the matter which we wish to master. It is… in a great degree, the sure means of success in all that we undertake; and if the power is not acquired early in life, great labour will be necessary to acquire it afterwards.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

Life, Learning, Reading

“From my days as a Marine in combat, to my tenure working undercover in the FBI, to my service as a Congressman representing the hardworking families on Staten Island and Brooklyn, I have spent my entire life fighting on behalf of the People with honor and integrity. The past 24 hours haven’t changed a thing, and I plan to work harder than ever for the people I am exceedingly proud to represent. To my constituents, let me be absolutely clear: the trumped-up charges against me are false and after my peers see the truth, justice will prevail. And while this groundless witch hunt proves there are powerful forces dedicated to tarnishing my reputation as part of a political vendetta, I’ll tell you what it doesn’t do: It doesn’t take back the billions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy aid I fought for in Congress, it doesn’t undo my flood insurance reform bill that will spare millions of Americans from skyrocketing premiums and home foreclosures, and it doesn’t negate the countless success stories of my office helping constituents with difficult challenges, from losing health coverage thanks to Obamacare, to being denied veteran survivor benefits, to helping our seniors deal with multiple daily struggles, simply put…the lives my staff and I have touched for the better are innumerable. And that’s why I am so heartened by the outpouring of love and support – I am truly humbled to work for the most salt of the earth people in the world. Which is why I am back working hard and doing what I’ve done from day one, relentless trying to improve their quality of life through old fashioned hard work and determination.”

Michael Grimm (1970) American politician

Facebook (29 April 2014) https://www.facebook.com/repmichaelgrimm 2010s

Love, Life, People, Health

“Organizations tend to model themselves after similar organizations in their field that they perceive to be more legitimate or successful.”

Paul DiMaggio (1951) American sociologist

Source: "The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields," 1983, p. 152

“The secret of my success is longevity.”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

In Herbert F. Vetter, " Not The Average Philosopher http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/hartshorne.html", Harvard Magazine, May/June 1997, Volume 99, Number 5. On his selection to the Library of Living Philosophers.

Secret

“Greek culture was competitive. Each successive historian and philosopher made a point of showing how he improved on his predecessor.”

Jasper Griffin (1937–2019) Public Orator and Professor of Classical Literature

The Oxford History of the Classical World (with John Boardman and Oswyn Murray, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) P.5

“In the January, 1933 issue of "SCIENCE FICTION" appeared a story I had written in 1932 entitled, "The Reign of the Superman." I used the pseudonym "Herbert S. Fine" which combined the name of a cousin of mine together with my mother's maiden name.
After the publication of "Reign of the Superman", it occurred to me that a different version of Superman could be the basis of an extremely powerful and successful comic book. And so I originated, together with Joe Shuster, the comic book "THE SUPERMAN", back in 1933.”

Jerry Siegel Superman

"Happy Anniversary, Superman!" http://theages.superman.ws/siegel.php (1983)

Books, Appearance, Science

“This very real difference between GM plants and their conventional counterparts is one of the basic truths that biotech proponents have endeavoured to obscure. As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals – and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science.
They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that the new foods were safe. Yet this, as Druker points out, was clearly not true.
Druker describes how amazingly successful the biotech lobby has been – and the extent to which the general public and government decision makers have been hoodwinked by the clever and methodical twisting of the facts and the propagation of many myths. Moreover, it appears that a number of respected scientific institutions, as well as many eminent scientists, were complicit in this relentless spreading of disinformation.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Senior academic condemns ‘deluded’ supporters of GM food as being ‘anti-science’ and ignoring evidence of dangers (4 March 2015) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2979645/Senior-academic-condemns-deluded-supporters-GM-food-anti-science-ignoring-evidence-dangers.html#ixzz4BZ4NnMuY Foreword to Altered Genes, Twisted Truth (2015)

Truth, Food, Decision, Appearance

“Up to eight feet long and as heavy as a lioness, the adult Komodo dragon brandishes steak-knifelike teeth - sharp, recurved blades with serrated cutting edges. Showing the same sagacity found in veteran Nile crocodiles, fully adult dragons know their hunting territory from years of experience. They know where to lie along hilly game trails, awaiting the light footsteps of a deer. Attacks are instant successes or failures because the ora has no stamina, and if it misses on the first short rush, it has little sustained speed for a long pursuit. When an attack succeeds, the cruel rows of slashing teeth cut fearful wounds on the rump and thigh of ambushed animals and the stricken prey may die of massive infection days later even if it manages to break free from the dragon's mouth. Tethered livestock suffer truly terrible cuts across the legs when an ora slinks into the compound under cover of the warm Indonesian nights. Several humans, both native and European visitors, have died in savage daylight attacks. The victims simply had no warning sign that the ora was waiting patiently a few feet from the trail's edge.”

Robert T. Bakker book The Dinosaur Heresies

The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 62-63
The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)

Lie, Fear, Game, Failure

“There were many reasons why we did not gain complete success at Arnhem. The following in my view were the main ones. First. The operation was not regarded at Supreme Headquarters as the spearhead of a major Allied movement on the northern flank designed to isolate, and finally to occupy, the Ruhr - the one objective in the West which the Germans could not afford to lose. There is no doubt in my mind that Eisenhower always wanted to give priority to the northern thrust and to scale down the southern one. He ordered this to be done, and he thought that it was being done. It was not being done. Second. The airborne forces at Arnhem were dropped too far away from the vital objective - the bridge. It was some hours before they reached it. I take the blame for this mistake. I should have ordered Second Army and 1st Airborne Corps to arrange that at least one complete Parachute Brigade was dropped quite close to the bridge, so that it could have been captured in a matter of minutes and its defence soundly organised with time to spare. I did not do so. Third. The weather. This turned against us after the first day and we could not carry out much of the later airborne programme. But weather is always an uncertain factor, in war and in peace. This uncertainty we all accepted. It could only have been offset, and the operation made a certainty, by allotting additional resources to the project, so that it became an Allied and not merely a British project. Fourth. The 2nd S. S. Panzer Corps was refitting in the Arnhem area, having limped up there after its mauling in Normandy. We knew it was there. But we were wrong in supposing that it could not fight effectively; its battle state was far beyond our expectation. It was quickly brought into action against the 1st Airborne Division.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Concerning Operation Market Garden in his autobiography, 'The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery' (1958)

War, Peace, Time, Fight

“I am not successful and I probably never will be. I look around and I see successful people, and I see that they have something I don't—success. Perhaps they were born that way, or perhaps they figured something out that I can never seem to learn. I don't know. That's why I'm not successful.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

December 12
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

People, Way, Learning

“Nothing could be further from the truth than the claim that we have a choice between cutting tax and cutting unemployment, for the two go hand in hand. It is no accident that the two most successful economies in the world, both overall and specifically in terms of job creation—those of the United States and Japan—have the lowest level of tax as a proportion of GDP. Reductions in taxation motivate new businesses and improve incentives at work. They are a principal engine of the enterprise culture, on which our future prosperity and employment opportunities depend.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/mar/18/income-tax in the House of Commons (18 March 1986)

Truth, World, Motivation, Business

“I hope that in its richness, as well as in its incompleteness, Gyn/Ecology will continue to be a Labrys enabling women to learn from our mistakes and our successes, and cast our Lives as far as we can go, Now, in the Be-Dazzling Nineties.”

Mary Daly (1928–2010) American radical feminist philosopher and theologian

Source: Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978–1990), p. xxxiii (New Intergalactic Introduction).

Women, Hope, Learning

“Army and navy. Little has developed in relation to our national defense which needs special attention. Progress is constantly being made in air navigation and requires encouragement and development. Army aviators have made a successful trip around the world, for which I recommend suitable recognition through provisions for promotion, compensation, and retirement. Under the direction of the Navy a new Zeppelin has been successfully brought from Europe across the Atlantic to our own country.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

World, Country

“Khomeini was one of some 200 Ayatollahs and never considered by others as "supreme" in anything. His limited knowledge of theology and history and his inability to master Persian and Arabic at a high level meant he would never attain the summit within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy. Khomeini was a politician and owed his place in the Iranian panorama to the success of his political movement against various rivals and adversaries.
Khamenei’s knowledge of theology and history is certainly superior to that of Khomeini. He also has a better command of both Persian and Arabic. Had Khamenei built a career within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy he would have had a good chance of reaching higher rungs of the ladder than Khomeini.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Iran after Khamenei: the Debate Starts http://english.aawsat.com/2017/03/article55369052/iran-khamenei-debate-starts, Ashraq Al-Awsat (March 10, 2017)

History, Knowledge, Chance

“You want to be a country that creates food stamps? In which case, frankly, Obama is an enormous success — the most successful food stamp president in American history. Or do you want to be a country that creates jobs?”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

2011-05-13 speech to Georgia Republican convention, quoted in * Meet the Press
NBC
Television
2011-05-15
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/43038280
2011-05-19
2010s

Food, History, Country

“It is the conscious man or woman who finds the secret of happiness and contentment; and that, surely, is the ultimate success.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

Secret, Happiness

“In most cases the favorable price performance will be accompanied by a well-defined improvement in the average earnings, in the dividend, and in the balance-sheet position. Thus in the long run the market test and the ordinary business test of a successful equity commitment tend to be largely identical.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing (1949), Chapter II, The Investor and Stock-Market Fluctuations, p. 25

Business

“If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation, p. 18

History

“In the application of the ordinary principles of geometry and trigonometry to such Astronomical measures… it may sometimes be expedient to resolve the process into several successive steps, and these steps may perhaps require different kinds of treatment. But… all are simple and within ordinary comprehension, and the only complexity arises from the circumstance that the student may find it necessary to have a clear view of several such steps at once…”

George Biddell Airy (1801–1892) English mathematician and astronomer

Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)

“The successful public administrator is curious about everything. Perhaps you don't see just why it is that a public administrator should go about continually asking questions of everything and everybody about him. Well, let us take one functional phase of public administration in a municipal government.
One of the best administrators that I ever knew had a great curiosity about garbage. He was the head of the refuse disposal department of the District of Columbia. He asked all sorts of questions of the garbage cans and the ash cans and trash barrels, because in that city we imposed upon the householders a three way system of refuse removal. You couldn't put your trash and your garbage and your ashes all in one container, you had to have three containers, and also, at that particular time, the collectors were divided into three different crews. So this man with this curiosity made a study of what he found in the rubbish cans, and the results. If that study were plotted on a map, and as the result of the study of that map the routings were rearranged, the whole system of garbage collection was rearranged; not only of collection, but of disposal.”

Louis Brownlow (1879–1963) American mayor

Source: "What Is an Administrator?" 1936, p. 6-7; As cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 658

Way, Question, Study, Time

“The churches became a major target for Communist-Socialist infiltration many years ago. These people were successful in capturing many key positions in a number of important religious organizations. Some religious leaders openly advocate and defend Communist principles. They are apologists for the Soviet Union and even advocate capitulation under threat of atomic war.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

War, People

“The view of things [called Pantheism] … — that all plurality is only apparent, that in the endless series of individuals, passing simultaneously and successively into and out of life, generation after generation, age after age, there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike; — this theory … may be carried back to the remotest antiquity. It is the alpha and omega of the oldest book in the world, the sacred Vedas, whose dogmatic part, or rather esoteric teaching, is found in the Upanishads. There, in almost every page this profound doctrine lies enshrined; with tireless repetition, in countless adaptations, by many varied parables and similes it is expounded and inculcated. That such was, moreover, the fount whence Pythagoras drew his wisdom, cannot be doubted … That it formed practically the central point in the whole philosophy of the Eleatic School, is likewise a familiar fact. Later on, the New Platonists were steeped in the same … In the ninth century we find it unexpectedly appearing in Europe. It kindles the spirit of no less a divine than Johannes Scotus Erigena, who endeavours to clothe it with the forms and terminology of the Christian religion. Among the Mohammedans we detect it again in the rapt mysticism of the Sufi. In the West Giordano Bruno cannot resist the impulse to utter it aloud; but his reward is a death of shame and torture. And at the same time we find the Christian Mystics losing themselves in it, against their own will and intention, whenever and wherever we read of them! Spinoza's name is identified with it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book On the Basis of Morality

Part IV, Ch. 2, pp. 269 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/269/mode/2up-272 On the Basis of Morality (1840)

Life, Death, Wisdom, Books

“The secret of success is to offend the greatest number of people.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

As quoted in Days with Bernard Shaw (1949) by Stephen Winsten
1940s and later

People, Secret

“The time has come to deal the enemy a terrific blow in Western Europe.
The blow will be struck by the combined sea, land and air forces of the Allies together constituting one great Allied team, under the supreme command of General Eisenhower.
On the eve of this great adventure I send my best wishes to every soldier in the Allied team.
To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history; and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings. We have a great and a righteous cause.
Let us pray that " The Lord Mighty in Battle " will go forth with our armies, and that His special providence will aid us in the struggle.
I want every soldier to know that I have complete confidence in the successful outcome of the operations that we are now about to begin.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory.
And, as we enter the battle, let us recall the words of a famous soldier spoken many years ago :
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dare not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all. "

Good luck to each one of you. And good hunting on the main land of Europe.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Personal message to troops of 21st Army Group on the eve of D-Day

Men, Fate, Lie, Fear

“Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Karma

“All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1910s, Prejudices, First Series (1919), Ch. 13

Help

“Simply ask & answer: if we were being wildly successful in fulfilling our purpose, what would it look, sound, & feel like? #SmallBizChat”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

3 June 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/15286917857 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Feeling

“Race had never been a defining element in successful nation states. The true definition always depended far more on distinctions in language, culture, and political institutions. Southerners spoke precisely the same language as Northerners, so there was no distinction there.”

William C. Davis (1946) American historian

Source: Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), p. 20

Dependency

“I am not working for failure, but for success, and for a real gain, and I must go the way to get it. I am sure the putting manhood suffrage in the Bill is not the way to get it. This has been done by the Chartists, and by the Complete Suffragists, but what has become of their Bills?”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Letter to Joseph Sturge (2 February 1858), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 270.
1850s

Way, Failure

“There must be times, in the world of business, when two Peale-powered personalities find themselves in opposition. Number One is determined to achieve success by selling Number Two a great gross of non-molting dust mops; Number Two is equally determined not to have the mops. Both have affirmed an equal number of times that he can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth him. What happens? Theologians will scratch their heads over this, and Immensity itself may feel a tremor.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

World, Feeling, Business, Time

“In Syria, we witnessed "a successful attempt by the Russians at replacing bully power with a balance of power."”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Putin Saves Us From Ourselves," https://www.wnd.com/2012/03/putin-saves-us-from-ourselves/ WorldNetDaily.com, March 23, 2012. 2010s, 2012

“Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we gather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the former successive destruction and renovation of the world.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.2, p. 10
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

World

““What happened?”
“Let’s just say my efforts to reprogram the weapon were not an unqualified success, shall we, and leave it at that?” She hated discussing failure almost as much as she hated the thing itself.”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 15 (p. 255)

Hate, Failure, Effort

“The success and originality of American integration stem precisely from the fact that immigrants' descendants can perpetuate their ancestral cultures while thinking of themselves as Americans in the fullest sense, sharing basic ideals across racial and ethnic barriers. In France, the characteristic attitude of newcomers from North Africa, Turkey, and sub-Saharan Africa is predominantly one of alienation, confrontation, rejection, and hatred.”

Jean-François Revel (1924–2006) French writer and philosopher

2000s, Europe's Anti-American Obsession (2003)

Thinking, Sense

“I think no book is more stimulating than the history of a devoted and successful life.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

F.W. Taylor (1911) in letter to John Fritz, who just published his autobiography; Cited in: Frank Barkley Copley, Frederick W. Taylor, father of scientific management https://archive.org/stream/frederickwtaylor01copl, 1923. p. v.

Life, Books, History, Thinking

“The rapid establishment of Christianity must therefore have been from the conviction which those who embraced it, had of its "Truth and power unto salvation." Christianity at first spread itself amongst the most enlightened nations of the earth - in those places where human learning was in its greatest perfection; and, by the force of the evidence which attended it, amongst such men it gained an establishment. It has been justly observed, that "it happened very providentially to the honour of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were t their height, and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to search after truth and lift the several opinions of the philosophers and wise men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of reasonable creatures." Both the learned and the ignorant alike embraced its doctrines; the learned were not likely to be deceived in the proofs which were offered; and the same cause undoubtedly operated to produce the effect upon each. But an immediate conversion of the bulk of mankind, can arise only from some proofs of a ddivine authority offering themselves immediately to the senses; the preaching of any new doctrine, if lest to operate only by its own force, would go but a very little way towards the immediate conversion of the gnorant, who have no principle of action but what arises from habit, and whose powers of reasoning are insufficient to correct their errors. When Mahomet was required by his followers to work a miracle for their conviction, he always declined it; he was too cautious to trust to an experiment, the success of which was scarcely whithin the bounds of probablity; he amused his followers with prtended visions, which with the aid afterwards of the civil and military powr; and as the accomplishment of that event was by a few obscure persons, who founded their pretentions upon authority from heaven, we are next to consider, what kind of proofs of their divine commission they offered to the world; and whether they themselves could have been deceived, or mankind could have been deludded by them.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 20; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA261," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 261-262

Men, Truth, Age, World

“[Anne Murray] embodies the Canadian popular music industry. She's been so successful within Canada and internationally. She's really identified with Canada, even one of her songs Snowbird, that's so Canada.”

Anne Murray (1945) Canadian singer

Brock Silversides, director of University of Toronto Libraries' Media Commons As quoted in Noreen Ahmed-Ullah, "'Canada's sweetheart' Anne Murray donates archives to U of T", 16 November 2017, University of Toronto, utoronto.ca https://www.utoronto.ca/news/canada-s-sweetheart-anne-murray-donates-archives-u-t

Music

“I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Interview with the Associated Press (18 January 2001)
2000s, 2001

Hope, Failure

“Had my lineage and rank been accompanied by only moderate success, I should have come to this city as friend rather than prisoner, and you would not have disdained to ally yourself peacefully with one so nobly born, the ruler of so many nations.”
Si quanta nobilitas et fortuna mihi fuit, tanta rerum prosperarum moderatio fuisset, amicus potius in hanc urbem quam captus venissem, neque dedignatus esses claris maioribus ortum, plurimis gentibus imperitantem foedere in pacem accipere.

Caratacus (15–54) British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe

Tacitus Annales, Bk. XII, ch. 37; translation from The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. Michael Grant, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1956] 1971) p. 267.

“America’s reign of optimism contributes to a culture in which negative feelings are often unwelcome. […] As I pondered the question Americans often posed to me—Why aren’t Finns more optimistic, despite their supposedly great society?—I began to turn it around into a different question, a question that seemed to me the more relevant one: How have Finns managed to build such a great society, despite all their negativity? Perhaps the answer is that Finns have built a great society because of their pessimism, not in spite of it. The volume of outrage and complaints that pour out of Finns whenever they perceive an injustice in their society can be annoying—especially when that injustice might be considered minor in other countries. Nevertheless, perhaps this capacity for negative response is part of the secret of Finnish success. Finns are quick to demand real changes that improve their external circumstances.”

Anu Partanen (1975) journalist

Source: The Nordic Theory of Everything, Chapter 9

Secret, Feeling, Optimism, Question

“Hitherto our principal difficulty has arose from a want of proper supplies of money, and from the inefficacy of that which we obtained; but now there appears a scene opening which will introduce new embarrassments. The Congress have recommended to the different States to take upon themselves the furnishing certain species of supplies for our department. The recommendation falls far short of the general detail of the business, the difficulty of ad justing which, between the different agents as well as the different authorities from which they derive their appointments, I am very apprehensive will introduce some jarring interests, many improper disputes, as well as dangerous delays. Few persons, who have not a competent knowledge of this employment, can form any tolerable idea of the arrangements necessary to give despatch and success in discharging the duties of the office, or see the necessity for certain relations and dependencies. The great exertions which are frequently necessary to be made, require the whole machine to be moved by one common interest, and directed to one general end. How far the present measures, recommended to the different States, are calculated to promote these desirable purposes, I cannot pretend to say; but there appears to me such a maze, from the mixed modes adopted by some States, and about to be adopted by others, that I cannot see the channels, through which the business may be conducted, free from disorder and confusion.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (January 1780)

Money, Idea, Business, Knowledge

“For a long time now there has been a rising tide of rebellion against this Western paramountcy, and a desire to reassert Muslim values and restore Muslim greatness. The Muslim has suffered successive stages of defeat. The first was his loss of domination in the world, to the advancing power of Russia and the West. The second was the undermining of his authority in his own country, through an invasion of foreign ideas and laws and ways of life and sometimes even foreign rulers or settlers, and the enfranchisement of native non-Muslim elements. The third—the last straw—was the challenge to his mastery in his own house, from emancipated women and rebellious children. It was too much to endure, and the outbreak of rage against these alien, infidel, and incomprehensible forces that had subverted his dominance, disrupted his society, and finally violated the sanctuary of his home was inevitable. It was also natural that this rage should be directed primarily against the millennial enemy and should draw its strength from ancient beliefs and loyalties.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

Life, Women, Children, World

“So successful has been the camera's role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful.”

Susan Sontag book On Photography

"The Heroism of Vision", p. 85
On Photography (1977)

World, Beauty

“I think we've come to where we are because of those positive ties and working together for working families. That's our priority and continues to be. It's been there since our founding and we've now achieved the best success we've ever had electorally. So I think you want to continue with what's working”

Jack Layton (1950–2011) Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

citation needed

Family, Thinking

“Clearly, the need for political and economic reform was now felt more widely in the country at large. Another, more obscure process, traceable to the flexibility and opportunism of the American political system, was also at work: successful resistance to reform demands required a partial incorporation of the reform program.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter IV, part I, p. 132

Country

“The engines that have driven poetry's institutional success — the explosion of academic writing programs, the proliferation of subsidized magazines and presses, the emergence of a creative-writing career track, and the migration of American literary culture to the university — have unwittingly contributed to its disappearance from public view.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991)

Universe

“I’ve known a lot of talented people but the people that really, really, achieve success – there is ambition, focus and drive behind it.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

Financial Times Interview (July 14, 2017)

People

“A thousand newspapers vulgarise knowledge, debase aesthetical appreciation, democratise success and make impossible all that was once unusual and noble. The man of letters has become a panderer to the intellectual appetites of a mob or stands aloof in the narrowness of a coterie. There is plenty of brilliance everywhere, but one searches in vain for a firm foundation, the power or the solidity of knowledge. The select seek paradox in order to distinguish themselves from the herd; a perpetual reiteration of some startling novelty can alone please the crowd…. Of all literary forms the novel only has still some genius and even that is perishing of the modern curse of overproduction.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

March 26, 1910
India's Rebirth

Search, Knowledge

“Roethlisberger argues that people who are preoccupied with success ask the wrong question. They ask, “what is the secret of success” when they should be asking, “what prevents me from learning here and now?” To be overly preoccupied with the future is to be inattentive toward the present where learning and growth take place. To walk around asking, “am I a success or a failure” is a silly question in the sense that the closest you can come to answer is to say, everyone is both a success and a failure.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Weick, Karl E. "How Projects Lose Meaning: The Dynamics of Renewal." in Renewing Research Practice by R. Stablein and P. Frost (Eds.). Stanford, CA: Stanford. 2004; cited in: Bob Sutton " Karl Weick On Why "Am I a Success or a Failure?" Is The Wrong Question http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/04/karl-weick-on-w.html," at bobsutton.typepad.com, April 12, 2008. 2000s

People, Secret, Failure, Question

“Interviewer: Your first serialized work is a tremendous success all of a sudden. Tell us the whole story of how a newcomer came to have her works serialized.”

Hiromu Arakawa (1973) award winning Japanese manga artist

Interview with mobuta.com (2004)

“What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany, and of our existence becoming dependent upon their good will or pleasure. It is to prevent that that I have tried my best to urge the maintenance of every bulwark of defence—first the timely creation of an Air Force superior to anything within striking distance of our shores; secondly, the gathering together of the collective strength of many nations; and thirdly, the making of alliances and military conventions, all within the Covenant, in order to gather together forces at any rate to restrain the onward movement of this Power. It has all been in vain. Every position has been successively undermined and abandoned on specious and plausible excuses.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_370 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement The 1930s

Pleasure, Sense, Time, Dependency

“Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80 percent of being a successful hitter. The other 20 percent is just execution. The mental aspects of hitting were especially important to me. I was strictly a guess hitter, which meant I had to have a thorough knowledge of every pitcher I came up against and develop a strategy for hitting him. My method was to identify the pitches a certain pitcher had and eliminate all but one or two and then wait for them. One advantage I had was quick wrists. Another advantage—and one that all good hitters have—was my eyesight. Sometimes I could read the pitcher's grip on the ball before he ever released it and be able to tell what pitch he was throwing. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.”

Hank Aaron (1934) Retired American baseball player

From I Had a Hammer (1990) by Aaron, with Lonnie Wheeler; as reproduced in Hank Aaron https://books.google.com/books?id=tcPC-qgM8McC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=%22Guessing+what+the+pitcher+is+going+to+throw+is+80+percent+of+being+a+successful+hitter.+The+other+20+percent+is+just+execution.%22&source=bl&ots=QZ81enT7WV&sig=NL9G0fGgcTJGfc6oVOYvuzBV2sI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQu9DFxcjVAhUEwYMKHdamDmsQ6AEIOzAE#v=onepage&q=%22Guessing%20what%20the%20pitcher%20is%20going%20to%20throw%20is%2080%20percent%20of%20being%20a%20successful%20hitter.%20The%20other%2020%20percent%20is%20just%20execution.%22&f=false (2007) by Jamie Poolos, p. 48

Knowledge, Waiting, Reading, Past

“Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 8.

Problem

“After your first job, is anyone asking you what your GPA was? No, they don't care. They ask you: Are you a good leader? Do people follow you? Do you have integrity? Are you innovative? Do you solve problems? Somebody's got to do that homework and redesign the educational system so that it can actually train people to be successful in life.I think the greatest teachers are not the ones that are best trained at educational tactics. I don't know a person who's ever said, "Boy, that teacher is so good! The teacher gives such good exams. That teacher gives such good homework sets!"”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

No one has said that about a great teacher. That's not what people remember about the great teachers they've had.
2000s, Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger (May 21, 2009)

People, Education, Boy, Problem

“Give, and thou shalt receive. Give thoughts of cheer,
Of courage and success, to friend and stranger.
And from a thousand sources, far and near,
Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of danger.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Give
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)

Courage

“I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny -- "The sky is falling." I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. And all this newspaper could do, with eight or 10 headlines, they showed a man bleeding, a civilian, who they claimed we had shot —one thing after another.
From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it's never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been.
Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here.”

Donald Rumsfeld (1932) U.S. Secretary of Defense

DOD news briefing following the fall of Baghdad (11 April 2003) http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030411-secdef0090.html

People, Food, Freedom, Water

“Greed: a word commonly used by liberals, low achievers, anti-capitalists and society's losers to denigrate, shame and discredit those who have acquired superior job skills and decision making capabilities and who, through application of those job skills, achieve success.”

Neal Boortz (1945) American author, journalist, and radio host

Quoted, without citation, in O'Boyle's Quotes, Jokes & Anecdotes (2012), p. 25
Attributed

Decision

“It is not to the force or validity of the argument that I object, but to the misinterpretation of its scope. It is a clinching dialectical thumbscrew for the torture of agnostics; yes, with reference to them and their very lawful stadium of thinking, it is even a step of value in the struggle of the soul toward a conviction of its really infinite powers and prospects; but I cannot see in it any full proof of the real being of God. Strictly construed, it is, as I have just endeavoured to show, simply the vindication of that active sovereign judgment which is the light of every mind, which organises even the most elementary perceptions, and which goes on in its ceaseless critical work of reorganisation after reorganisation, building all the successive stages of science, and finally mastering those ultimate implications of science that constitute the insights of philosophy.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The City of God and the True God as its Head (In Royce’s “The Conception of God: a Philosophical Discussion Concerning the Nature of the Divine Idea as a Demonstrable Reality”), p.111

God, Law, Soul, Thinking

“It was not a Government that built up the skill and craft of this country…It was private individuals who patiently persevered, building up their businesses bit by bit…Their success provided employment for others and greatly benefited the community as a whole. This was the spirit that made England great and can restore her once again. Do you want it to perish for a soul-less Socialist system, or to live to recreate a glorious Britain?”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Article for Gravesend and Dartford Reporter (28 January 1950) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100856 1950s

Soul, Communication, Business, Country

“He ventured to enter his most earnest protest against the mode in which several Members of that House were inclined to treat anything that ran out of the common ruck—and introduced them to schemes and ideas which former debates had not reached. The scheme of the hon. Gentleman was not new—he should not have thought that it was new to many Members of that House; the literature of the country had been full of it for three or four years. They all instinctively felt that it was a scheme that had no chance of success. It was not of our atmosphere—it was not in accordance with our habits; it did not belong to us. They all knew that it could not pass. Whether that was creditable to the House or not was a question into which he would not inquire; but every Member of the House the moment he saw the scheme upon the Paper saw that it belonged to the class of impracticable things.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1867/may/30/committee-progress-may-28 in the House of Commons (30 May 1867) against John Stuart Mill's proposal for electing MPs by proportional representation 1860s

Literature, Idea, Question, Chance

Quotes about success page 25

Quotes about success
page 25