Quotes about success
page 35

“I feel very lucky to still feel like I’m full of ideas. I think sometimes being in the beginning or the middle of things is almost the best bit. This sounds terrible, because it sounds so ungrateful, but I’m never as excited by the aftermath of things: whether or not they are successful. It’s lovely if they are, obviously, but actually the really exciting bit is when it’s an idea in your head and you’re getting working on it.”

Tracey Thorn (1962) English singer and songwriter

On whether she feels creatively satisfied in “Tracey Thorn: ‘Not everything you do is cool’” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jan/27/tracey-thorn-another-planet-a-teenager-in-suburbia-interview in The Guardian (2020 Jan 27)

Thinking, Idea, Love, Making love

“I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

2000s, Address at Stanford University (2005)

Light, Life

“Cooking is revelation and creation; and a woman can find special satisfaction in a successful cake or a flaky pastry, for not every one can do it: one must have the gift.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. 2, part 5, Ch. 1: The Married Woman, p. 506
The Second Sex (1949)

Cooking

“Listen, one doesn’t need to be religious (nor a rocket scientist) to see the value of abstinence. Let’s disregard the immediately eliminated risk of increasingly popular STD’ and STI’s. Heck, let’s even discount the statistical data showing that sexual exclusivity seems overwhelmingly conducive to a successful marriage .Abstinence also provides an incomparable bond of trust in a relationship.”

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

Marriage

“So Sweden. Good place not bad people. But a successful model for a viable economy in today's global market. Incorrect!”

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

Bad luck, People

“The fact is that over time the greatest enemy of Socialism is reality.The reality that human nature will invariably pull certain people toward individualism and success and others toward laziness and collectivism.”

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

Time, People, Nature, Reality

“I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom. Seventy-five of us worked twenty hours every day and slept only four hours — and thrived on it.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

Diary entry, as quoted in Defending and Parenting Children Who Learn Differently : Lessons from Edison's Mother (2007) by Scott Teel, p. 12
Date unknown

“Success is attractive.”

Scarlet Jei Saoirse (1984) American singer and actress

“On closing this book, if I was to leave you with only one thought, it would be this: My life story could only happen in America. Look at my life: Here was a guy with very little observable potential- nothing much behind him except a couple loving parents. But because of the way this country functions I was able to make my way through and have a very good life. I don't think I had any special talent or ability. Anybody could do what I did if he wanted to. I've never resented anybody ho has something I didn't have, because I knew that in this country if I worked hard enough I could have it, too. The system in America allows for and welcomes success. That's worth fighting for if someone threatens to take it away. You can have anything or be anything you want in this country if you put your mind to it. Don't let anybody take that away from you.”

Lynn Compton (1921–2012) Easy Company soldier turned noted jurist

Source: Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers (2008), p. 254

Love, Country, Thinking, Books

“But success in a military operation always feels short-lived. You shoulder your rifle and move on from there to the next battle.”

Lynn Compton (1921–2012) Easy Company soldier turned noted jurist

Source: Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers (2008), p. 107

Feeling

“On the day when the human conscience shall lose its bearings, on the day when success shall carry the day before that forum, all will be at an end. The last moral gleam will reascend to heaven. Darkness will be in the mind of man. You will have nothing to do but to devour one another, wild beasts that you are!”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Napoleon the Little (1852), Conclusion, Part First, III
Napoleon the Little (1852)

“The stuff of revolution, and its first success, must be the ability to innovate. In that sense, there is more revolutionary spirit in the United States today, even on the Right, than elsewhere on the Left. The relative freedom in the United States would make it possible for such a revolution to occur bloodlessly, Revel said.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Five, The American Matrix for Transformation

Sense, Freedom, Making love

“Behind every successful man, there stands a surprised woman.”

Maryon Pearson (1901–1989) Wife of Prime Minister of Canada

“I will say, finally, that I despair of the republic while slavery exists therein. If I look up to God for success, no smile of mercy or forgiveness dispels the gloom of futurity; if to our own resources, they are daily diminishing; if to all history, our destruction is not only possible, but almost certain. Why should we slumber at this momentous crisis? If our hearts were dead to every throb of humanity; if it were lawful to oppress, where power is ample; still, if we had any regard for our safety and happiness, we should strive to crush the Vampire which is feeding upon our life-blood. All the selfishness of our nature cries aloud for a better security. Our own vices are too strong for us, and keep us in perpetual alarm; how, in addition to these, shall we be able to contend successfully with millions of armed and desperate men, as we must eventually, if slavery do not cease?”

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) American journalist

Address to the Colonization Society http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=562 (4 July 1829)

Despair, Selfishness, God, Forgiveness

“For me, the measures of success will be both environmental and social. What I’d like to see us do is as a nation have a set of measures that we use consistently so that the public can hold us to account. But as I’ve also said all the way through this campaign, the measure of success to me is not how a financial commentator or an economic commentator from abroad views New Zealand, but how a New Zealander feels about their state of affairs, their hope and chances for the future.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Chance, Future, Hope, Way

“One activity initiates another; the largest individual force maintains those more active adjustments, "simultaneous and successive," between the internal and external, which indicate the most vigorous life. We must look, then, to something more than a direct antagonism, between growth and reproduction, to account for unlikeness's of the sexes in plant or animal.”

Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825–1921) American minister

September 1874, Popular Science Monthly Vol. 5, Article: The Alleged Antagonism Between Growth and Reproduction , p. 608
The Alleged Antagonism Between Growth and Reproduction (1874)

Animals, Sex, Life

“Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Old Deuteronomy
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939)

Cats, Time

“It is not necessary to judge and ridicule when, thank God, you have not passed the path that I have. To them, as always, I wish everyone good and every honor on their careers and in further life a lot of success and less condemnation.”

Darko Miličić (1985) Serbian basketball player

As quoted in "Darko Responds To Carmelo About '03 Draft: 'Not Necessary To Ridicule'" https://971theticket.radio.com/articles/news/darko-responds-to-carmelo-not-necessary-to-ridicule (31 March 2020), 97.1 The Ticket <br class="br">2020s

God, Life

“Every day, COVID-19 seems to reach a new and tragic milestone. More than 210,000 cases have now been reported to WHO, and more than 9,000 people have lost their lives. Every loss of life is a tragedy. It’s also motivation to double down and do everything we can to stop transmission and save lives. We also need to celebrate our successes. Yesterday, Wuhan reported no new cases for the first time since the outbreak started. Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world, that even the most severe situation can be turned around. Of course, we must exercise caution – the situation can reverse. But the experience of cities and countries that have pushed back this virus give hope and courage to the rest of the world.”

Tedros Adhanom (1965) Director-General of the World Health Organization, former Minister in Ethiopia

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 20 March 2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---20-march-2020, World Health Organization.

Courage, Loss, Time, Country

“The average successful banker is by no means so intelligent and resourceful a man as is the average successful business man. Yet the banker through his control of credit practically controls the average business man.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

Source: My Life and Work (1922), Chapter XII, Money - Master or Servant

Business, Intelligence

“I have had a larger responsibility of human lives than ever man or woman had before. And I attribute my success to this — I never gave or took an excuse. Yes, I do see the difference now between me and other men. When a disaster happens, I act and they make excuses.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Letter to Miss H. Bonham Carter, 1861. As quoted in The Gigantic Book of Teachers' Wisdom (2007) by Frank McCourt and Erin Gruwell, p. 410

Making love, Men

“Hydroxychloroquine has been studied as a possible antiviral therapy for many decades. Despite showing evidence of activity against several viruses in the laboratory, it never showed success in randomized clinical trials.”

Luciana Borio American physician and public health administrator

In response to Donald Trump's statement on using the drug as treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), quoted in Ignoring Expert Opinion, Trump Again Promotes Use of Hydroxychloroquine https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/us/politics/trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus.html (April 5, 2020) by Michael Crowley, Katie Thomas and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times.

Study

“It was easy to sound that confident; less easy to believe it in his heart. They had got this far did not give them an automatic guarantee of success. The world did not work like that. It took pleasure in punishing the cocksure.”

Alastair Reynolds book Terminal World

Source: Terminal World (2010), Chapter 24 (p. 455)

Confidence, Heart, Pleasure, Self-confidence

“This success has little to do with cultural factors. And the lack of cultural bias means that these practices can be – and are – just as successfully employed elsewhere.”

Masaaki Imai (1930) Japanese business theorist and consultant

“Much protest is naive; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out for longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone's individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Poem of Difficult Hope"
What Are People For? (1990)

Despair, History, Dependency, Hope

“Whether France or Italy or Germany or England has made the greatest contribution in the history of modern civilisation—however that speculative controversy may be settled, this at least is certain, that those are not wrong who hold that Germany's high and strict standard of competency, the purity and vigour of her administration of affairs, her splendid efforts and great success in all branches of science, her glories—for glories they are—in art and literature, and the fixed strength of character and duty in the German people entitle her national ideals to a supreme place among the greatest-ideals that now animate and guide the world. Do not let us forget all that. German ambition is a perfectly intelligible and even lofty ambition.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1911/nov/28/morocco#column_384 in the House of Lords during the Agadir Crisis (28 November 1911) <br class="br">1910s

History, Forgetting, Intelligence, People

“As successes come your way, remember that you didn't do it alone. It is always we.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

Source: It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership (2012), p. 266

Way

“In the 1970's and 1980's vaccines became, one might say, victims of their own success. They had been so effective in preventing infectious diseases that the public became much less alarmed at the threat of those diseases, and much more concerned with the risk of injury from the vaccines themselves.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 562 U.S. 223 (2011), 226.
2010s

Disease

“Prayers will be offered up for the success of our work in temples and in churches also; for it will bring relief from an old burden, which all have suffered.
But we must first bring enlightenment to men's minds. The idea must make its way into the most distant, miserable holes where our people dwell. They will awaken from gloomy brooding, for into their lives will come a new significance. Every man need think only of himself, and the movement will assume vast proportions.
And what glory awaits those who fight unselfishly for the cause!
Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again.
Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have it.
We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes.
The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness.
And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) Austro-Hungarian journalist and writer

VI : Conclusion
Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State] (1896)

Home, Wealth, Spring, People

“In a free-market economy, the consumer is king: labor unions don't run things, business people don't run things, bankers don't run things, politicians don't run things, but the success of a business depends on how people spend their money.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

In response to the question "What is your opinion on direct democracy, where the citizens themselves make law, rather than elected representatives?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-nfaTZNWcI (May 14, 2015)
2015

Money, Dependency, Business, People

“Every person in this world wants to know the secrete behind success in professional as well as personal life. Having positive attitude is the key to achieving success in life.”

Gaur Gopal Das (1973) Indian spiritual leader, lifestyle coach and motivational speaker

[Positive attitude key to success, says Gaur Gopal Das, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/positive-attitude-key-to-success-says-gaur-gopal-das/articleshow/62501124.cms, Times of India, 15 January 2018]

Personality, Secret, World, Life

“It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm. It is quite necessary, nevertheless, to lay down such a principle, because the actual mortality in hospitals, especially in those of large crowded cities, is very much higher than any calculation founded on the mortality of the same class of diseases among patients treated out of hospital would lead us to expect. The knowledge of this fact first induced me to examine into the influence exercised by hospital construction on the duration and death-rate of cases received into the wards; and it led me to lay before the Social Science Association a paper reprinted with the present title. Since the publication of the first edition of that paper, great advances have been made in the adoption of sound principles of hospital construction; and there are already a number of examples of new hospitals realizing all, or nearly all, the conditions required for the successful treatment of the sick and maimed poor.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Notes on Hospitals 3rd Edition (1863), Preface

Knowledge, Exercises, Science, Death

“I firmly believe that unless one has tasted the bitter pill of failure, one cannot aspire enough for success.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator

Source: quoteslyfe.com ([https://www.quoteslyfe.com/author/A-P-J-Abdul-Kalam-quotes online)

Failure

“Never give up hope, try with confidence; you will be successful.”

Arifur Rahman (1984) Award-winning Cartoonist, Animator, Illustrator

Source: Quoted in Animation short film Try, which was written and directed by him in 2010.

Self-confidence, Confidence, Hope

“There are some directors who actually fear the possible success of music. They fear that the audience or the critics will think the film has worked because there was a very good music score.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

Music, Fear, Thinking

“Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions. Karma. The philosophy of action is that no one else is the giver of peace or happiness. One's own karma, one's own actions are responsible to come to bring either happiness or success or whatever... As you sow, so shall you reap. It's a very old proverb of mankind. As you sow, so shall you reap. Sometime you may have killed that man, and then sometime now he comes to kill you... What we have done, the result of that comes to us whenever it comes, either today, tomorrow, hundred years later, hundred lives later, whatever, whatever. And so, it's our own karma.
That is why that philosophy in every religion: Killing is sin. Killing is sin in every religion. Whosoever sins, whoever is killed, it doesn't matter. It's a sin. And sin.. is a punishable offense. Because when you sin, when you've killed some man, what you are killing? You are killing the cosmic potential within the individual. Individual is cosmic. Individual potential of life is cosmic potential. Individual is divine deep inside. Transcendental experience awakens that divinity in man...When you kill a man like that you deprive him from getting to his human right.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) Inventor of Transcendental Meditation, musician

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in CNN Larry King Weekend:Interview With Maharishi Mahesh Yogi http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/12/lklw.00.html, (2002)

Peace, Religion, Happiness, Problem

“Will there never come a season
Which shall rid us from the curse?
Of a prose which knows no reason
And an unmelodious verse:
When the world shall cease to wonder
At the genius of an Ass,
And a boy's eccentric blunder
Shall not bring success to pass:When mankind shall be delivered
From the clash of magazines,
And the inkstand shall be shivered
Into countless smithereens:
When there stands a muzzled stripling,
Mute, beside a muzzled bore:
When the Rudyards cease from Kipling
And the Haggards Ride no more.”

James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892) English poet, tutor to Prince Albert Victor

To R. K.

Season, World, Boy

“The last hundred years have shown... that one man cannot do it all, and that anyone who attempts to hold within his two hands all the threads of a great business of the present day fails to achieve the greatest success.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Business

“Where one Jacob Fugger, Cosimo de Medici, de la Pole or Gresham strove for success we have now literally thousands of keen, clever men as fearless, as progressive and as determined as they. Money not only for the few but for the many is the prize which is sought, and for this prize is the race now perhaps swifter, the battle keener, the game bigger than has been any race, battle, or game since the world began; and commerce in its broader sense is the medium through which this prize is won.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

Money, Game, World, Sense

“We interview people who are extraordinary successes, so they are visible. We ignore people who create a balanced life, so they are invisible.”

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

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 93

Life, People

“...the French business is no light or trivial thing, or such as has commonly occurd in the course of political Events. At present the whole political State of Europe hinges upon it. On the Continent there is little doubt; every thing will take is future shape and colour from the good or ill success of the Duke of Brunswick. In my opinion, it is the most important crisis that ever existed in the World. ... My poor opinion is, that these principles...cannot possibly be realized in practice in France, without an absolute certainty and that at no remote period, of overturning the whole fabrick of the British Constitution.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

1790s
Source: Letter to the Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville (19 September 1792), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VII: January 1792–August 1794 (1968), pp. 218-219

Business, Light, Future, World

“...I am sure, that the sentiments which it [Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs] contains are such, as tend to connect the rights of the Crown with those of the Subject, and to secure the stability of both. I think at least that I have shewn, beyond a Dispute, that my Sentiments are those of the rational Whiggs who settled the succession, upon the antient principles of the constitution, in the House of Hannover.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Bishop of Salisbury John Douglas (31 July 1791), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 309
1790s

Thinking, Housing

“The architects of the Constitution had the intention of making a republican and federal government which would endure with stability, insure justice, promote the general welfare and be proof against usurpation, either by the few and the rich or by the poor and the many. For the founding of a republic they had guides. For a federal system they had none. But they thoroughly believed that help could be found in the successes and failures of the past. They knew all about the ‘class struggle’—so, for that matter, did the Greek philosophers, although you would think from our young socialist friends that Karl Marx was the first person ever to notice it. They knew all about Fascism and its causes, although they called it by another name.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
pp. 52-53
Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

Justice, Past, Personality, Help

“The task of unveiling the hidden truth demands some knowledge of Cosmogenesis, of the emanation of the Universe from the Absolute, the finite from the Infinite, and of the successive cycles, major and minor, of involution and evolution. In addition, both knowledge of the Symbolical Language, its purposes, methods and classical symbols, and the faculty of analysing and interpreting historical metaphors, are necessary to open the casket containing the treasures of concealed wisdom—the Holy Bible itself.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Source: The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible (1963)

Knowledge, Truth, Universe, Wisdom

“It is a most important decision that we make as a nation. But all of you have lived through the last four years and have seen the significance of space and the adventures in space, and no one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of space. I believe we should go to the moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Country, Thinking, Decision, Sense

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 6; translated by W. K. Marriott

Fear, Men, Law

“I believe...all the enduring institutions which human societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive generations to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give the name of "drifting."”

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

Source: Minute (20 April 1875), quoted in E. D. Steele, 'Salisbury at the India Office', in Lord Blake and Hugh Cecil (eds.), Salisbury: The Man and his Policies (1987), p. 141

“Resistance is folly or heroism—a virtue or a vice—in most cases, according to the probabilities there are of its being successful. The perils of change are so great the promise of the most hopeful theories is so often deceptive, that it is frequently the wiser part to uphold the existing state of things, if it can be done, even though, in point of argument, it should be utterly indefensible.”

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

'Parliamentary Reform', Quarterly Review, 117, 1865, p. 550

Hope, Parting, Change

“War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

As quoted in Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (1904) by George Francis Robert Henderson http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12233, Ch. 25 : The Soldier and the Man, p. 481 <br class="br">Q him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow…]]

Time, Business, Country, War

“We must make this campaign an exceedingly active one. Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger; it must make up in activity what it lacks in strength. A defensive campaign can only be made successful by taking the aggressive at the proper time. Napoleon never waited for his adversary to become fully prepared, but struck him the first blow.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

Source: Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (1891), Ch. 22 : The Last Happy Days — Chancellorsville — 1863, p. 429

Time, Waiting, Country, Making love

“The only difference between the Chinese Communist Party and the Mafia is that the former is more successful at what it does, while the latter lacks an ideological rationale for its crimes. Ergo, totalitarianism must be the starting point in any discussion of China.”

Don Feder (1946) writer; Media consultant

The Single Most Important Thing About China https://web.archive.org/web/20111110072549/http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18920 (January 12, 2007)

“I never planned ahead for anything in my life -- not for my exams, not when I had to buy clothes for an occasion -- I always do things at the last moment. So when I got the captaincy, I kept doing what I always did. I never thought about success, failure, future or past.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/26113613/espn-world-fame-100-2019#mashrafe-bin-mortaza

Clothes, Past, Future, Life

“...the great Book of Genesis—a marvellous cup filled with the “wine” of the esoteric knowledge of the Sanctuaries of ancient days. Temples of the Ageless Wisdom exist to-day, even if less easily discoverable, and in them are to be found the selfsame teachings, laws, successions, Initiations and radiations of the light of Truth. World changes are not reflected in the Mysteries, which are repositories and conveyors of eternal and unchanging Ideas. A sack of corn containing a silver cup awaits every Benjamin who finds himself called by a Hierophant (Joseph) from the “famine-stricken” outer world to the “storehouse” from which an elder brother (a Master) Who has already attained will, in prodigal abundance, supply a gift of the golden grain of eternal verities.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible (1963), Volume III

Law, Light, Knowledge, Truth

“There's no better guarantee of failure than convincing yourself that success is impossible...”

Max Tegmark book Our Mathematical Universe

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)

Failure

“It is impossible to pursue a successful literary career and follow the advice of all one's 'best friends.”

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

I feel compelled to follow the light which my own intellect & judgement cast upon my way, rather than any one of the many conflicting rays which other minds would lend me.
from Preface to Poems of Passion 1883 edition

“As is often the case a failed marriage led to a successful divorce. We split the house; I got the outside...... It was at that point where I made a promise to myself, I said I'm not going to get married again, I'm just gonna find a woman I don't like and give her everything.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - Twisted Romance (2 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Marriage, Housing

“[W]e live... in the pockets of reducibility. ...I should have realized [that] very many years ago, but didn't... [I]t could very well be that everything about the world is computationally irreducible and completely unpredictable, but... in our experience of the world there is at least some amount of prediction we can make. ...[T]hat's because we have ...chosen a slice of ...how to think about the universe, in which we can... sample a certain amount of computational reducibility, and that's... where we exist. ...It may not be the whole story about how the universe is, but it is that part of the universe that we care about and ...operate in. ...In science, that's been ...a very special case ...science has chosen to talk a lot about places where there is this computational reducibility... The motion of the planets can be ...predicted. The... weather is much harder to predict. ...[S]cience has tended to concentrate itself on places where its methods have allowed successful prediction.”

Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman

Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe (Sep 15, 2020)

Universe, Thinking, Weather, World

“The secret of success is understanding what it can affect.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Il segreto del successo è capire ciò che può colpire.
Source: prevale.net

Secret, Understanding

“Without an alliance with non-Communists in the most diverse spheres of activity there can be no question of any successful communist construction.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

“On the Significance of Militant Materialism” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/12.htm, (12 March 1922) <br class="br">1920s

Question

“I am not smarter than anybody else but I can out work you – and my key to success for you, or anybody else is make sure you are the first one in there every day and the last one to leave. Don’t ever take a lunch break or go to the bathroom, you keep working.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

Source: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2013/08/bloomberg-bathroom-break-success-quote.html

Making love

“Movies take years to bring to theater, but hours to watch. Strikingly similar to success.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

“If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things”

Timothy Ferriss book Tools of Titans

School, Life

“A carnivorous animal is not an ideal animal, and never can be. The life of a carnivorous animal is a perpetual onslaught. Every meal is a murder. Eating is not the harmless activity it is to one who sits down to fruit and grains. The carnivore must kill somebody, or have somebody else do it for him, in order to eat. It cannot be otherwise. And an animal whose life is one unbroken succession of such necessities, whose stomach is the grave of hundreds and thousands, and even of tens of thousands, of his fellow-beings, may be meritorious in other respects — may preach the Golden Rule, decry war, give money to the missionary, and rail at the rich — but so long as he continues to fill himself every few hours with the blood and vitals of others, he is not only not an ideal animal, but has in reality no just claims on life. Flesh is a painful form of nutrition for any organism, but it is especially so for man, because it is unnecessary, and because man makes so many pretensions and occupies a position in the world of such exceptional responsibility.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Food of the Future, pp. 131–132

Money, Pain, War, Animals

“Simply put, when you invite people’s best thinking and lead like a multiplier, your team will give you more—more discretionary effort, more mental and physical energy, and more of the fresh ideas critical for long-term success.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Journal Articles

People, Thinking, Idea, Effort

“If success is a catalyst for failure because it leads to the “undisciplined pursuit of more,” then one simple antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less. Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Journal Articles

Failure

“A strong, positive self – image is the best possible preparation for success”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

Success, Positive, Self-confidence, Strong

“I believe that a solid team is at the center of any successful organization.”

Larry Baer (1957) MLB Executive

Larry Baer - CEO of The San Francisco Giants' https://ideamensch.com/larry-baer/, Ideamensch (February 4, 2021)

“Sanskrit was a complete success and became the language of all cultured people in India and in countries under Indian influence. All scientific, philosophical, historical works were henceforth written in Sanskrit, and important texts existing in other languages were translated and adapted into Sanskrit. For this reason, very few ancient literary, religious, or philosophical documents exits in India in other languages. The sheer volume of Sanskrit literature is immense, and it remains largely unexplored.”

Alain Daniélou (1907–1994) French historian, musicologist, Indologist and expert on Shaivite Hinduism

Alain Danielou in: Virtue, Success, Pleasure, and Liberation: The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India https://books.google.co.in/books?id=IMSngEmfdS0C&pg=PA17, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, 1 August 1993, p. 17.

Country, Literature, People

“The greater your successes and victories, the more opposition your enemies will come your way, with painful and discouraging events.”

Attila (406–453) King of the Hunnic Empire

Turkish Wikipedia
https://quotestats.com/topic/attila-hun-quotes/

Way, Pain, Victory

“[E]lections to the supreme power having upon some occasions produced the most destructive contentions, many states would take refuge from a return of the same calamities, in a rule of succession; and no rule presents itself so obvious, certain, and intelligible, as consanguinity of birth.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Vol. II, Book VI, Ch. I.
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785)

Birth, Intelligence

“Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Training, Effort

“Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you're not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.”

David Rockefeller (1915–2017) American banker and philanthropist

Business, Training

“You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

“Ask yourself the secret of your success. Listen to your answer, and practice it.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Secret

“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?”

W. Clement Stone (1902–2002) American New Thought author

Help, Life

“Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Perseverance, People, Failure

“To follow, without halt, one aim: There is the secret of success.”

Anna Pavlova (1881–1931) Russian ballet dancer

Secret

“The industrial landscape is already littered with remains of once successful companies that could not adapt their strategic vision to altered conditions of competition.”

Ralph Abernathy (1926–1990) American Civil Rights Movement leader

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) American author and Unitarian clergyman

Motivational, Success, Inspirational, For Team

“It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

Failure

“I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything hes got.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Source: Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Imagination, Personality, Game, Life

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Question, People

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Idea, Dreams, Thinking, Way

“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Failure, Effort, Hope

“Such corruption feeds on its own success when it meets no correction.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The Hallowed Hunt

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 15 (p. 260)

“Very successful people are absurdly selective.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Twitter

People

“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."”

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

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.
1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

Men