Quotes about success
page 7

“According to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless's beliefs, a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn't a challenge at all.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

“Success tended to make the unorthodox acceptable”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Siege of Macindaw

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours..”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Variant: I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Source: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

Inspirational, Motivational, Positive, Back To Work

“Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.”

Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982) New Zealand writer

Source: Death on the Air and Other Stories

Reading

“I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures, those who make it or those who don't. I divide the world into learners and nonlearners.”

Benjamin R. Barber (1939–2017) US political scientist

Source: The Reader's digest vol. 140, no. 837-842 (1992), p. 159

World, Failure, Strong

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), Chapter VI: "Difficulties on Theory", page 189 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=207&itemID=F373&viewtype=image <br class="br">Source: The Origin of Species

“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

For Team, Business, Graduation, Funny

“So my own sister will not promote me? Speaking of which, weren't you supposed to find me a beautiful future wife with a small fortune? Have you had any success on that front?
- Yes - I have warned them all.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Beauty, Sister, Future

“He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“Reflection is one of the most underused yet powerful tools for success.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

“Every action we take has consequences, Vin," Kelsier said. "I've found that in both Allomancy and life, the person who can best judge the consequences of their actions will be the most successful.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Life, Personality

“Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

Books, World, Victory

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Positive Thinking Every Day : An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year (1993), "April 13"
Earlier variant: People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. And those who have learned to have a realistic, nonegotistical belief in themselves, who possess a deep and sound self-confidence, are assets to mankind, too, for they transmit their dynamic quality to those lacking it.
‪You Can If You Think You Can‬ (1987), p. 84

Success, Depressing, People, Secret

“It is true that success is the most boring thing, it is tinny and brittle, failure runs deeper. Success is dangerous. I have a very complicated relationship with that word.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Failure

“Successful people don’t do it alone.”

Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers

Outliers: The Story of Success

People

“People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

People

“I may do some good before I am dead--be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story.”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

Dead

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Personal Success

Success, Women, Men, People

“Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.”

Po Bronson (1964) American writer

Money, Failure

“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Inspirational, Success, Motivational, Positive

“No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from
scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who
have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve
our goals.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

People, Learning

“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

Beauty, Art, Nature

“Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Life

“Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

67: Success is counted sweetest
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Context: p>Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires a sorest need.Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of VictoryAs he defeated — dying —
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!</p

“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Personality

“A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others.
By John Maxwell”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Personality

“I am made, crudely, for success.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

1958-04-22
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000)
Source: The Collected Poems

“I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that.”

Bob Newhart (1929) American stand-up comedian and actor

Thinking

“It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

“Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

"Why We Need To Understand Science" in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990)
Context: Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom. We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking. It works. It’s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change. Our task is not just to train more scientists but also to deepen public understanding of science.

Way, Knowledge, Thinking, Science

“Your success and happiness lie in you.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Success, Lie, Happiness

“Mr Churchill, to what do you attribute your success in life?

Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.”

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

Variant: Mr.Churchill, to what do you attribute your success in life? Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.

Life, Lie

“One of the secrets of a successful life is to know how to be a little profitably crazy.”

Josephine Tey (1896–1952) Scottish author, mystery writer

Source: To Love and Be Wise

Life, Secret

“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and
try again in a different way.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Motivational, Success, Life, For Men

“Everything everyone thinks they know about [Mother Teresa] is false. It must be the single most successful emotional con job of the twentieth century.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Thinking, Falseness

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

My Life and Work (1922)

Success, Secret, Personality

“If you're a nobody, if your work has no impact, then it deserves to be praised. If, however, you climb out of that state of mediocrity and are a success, then your defying 'the law' and deserve to be punished.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Law

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”

David Brinkley (1920–2003) American journalist

Motivational, Success, Attitude, Life

“The road to success is always under construction”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Success, Attitude, For Team, Positive

“Someone else's success is not your failure.”

Alexandra Robbins book The Overachievers

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids

Powerful, Failure

“It is my belief… that the talents every child has, regardless of his official 'I. Q,' could stay with him through life, to enrich him and everybody else, if these talents were not regarded as commodities with a value in the success-stakes.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Life

“Success and failure are equally disastrous.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Failure

“Happiness doesn't just flow from success; it actually causes it.”

Richard Wiseman (1966) British psychologist

Source: 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot

Happiness

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.”

Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker

Success

“Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.”

Ben Carson book Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

People, Problem

“all success cloaks a surrender”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

“I walked away exhilarated by my success, because there's nothing like making a difference in someone's life, even if that difference is a lifetime of nightmares and a fortune in therapy bills.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Variant: There's nothing like the feeling of knowing that you've made a difference in someone's life, even if that difference is a lifetime of nightmares and a fortune in therapy bills.
Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

Life

“The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Life, Feeling, Future, Despair

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and ablities were used in a way that served others.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Way, Sleep, Night

“The key to success is failure”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Failure

“Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.”

Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer

“That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Variant: Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.
Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Failure

“The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.”

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

Secret, Personality, Happiness

“After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identical days began again.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Pain, Disappointment, Heart

“There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be rich, famous and successful, but if those are our goals, we're off on a wrong foot… I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing.”

Phyllis A. Whitney (1903–2008) American writer

Money, Home, Help

“A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”

Robert B. Cialdini (1945) American social psychologist

Source: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

People, Behavior

“How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success?”

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

Effort, Time, Patience

“We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

World, Idea

“In order that people may be happy in their work,
these three things are needed:
they must be fit for it;
they must not do too much of it;
and they must have a sense of success in it.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

People, Sense, Happiness

“Sometimes, she reflected, she dressed for courage, sometimes for success, and sometimes for the consolation of knowing that whatever else went wrong, at least she liked her clothes.”

Emma Bull book War for the Oaks

Source: War for the Oaks

Courage, Clothes

“I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing…. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

People, Personality

“It's always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph (2011)
Context: It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility. You can try to stop time, but it’s a complete waste of energy.

Life, World, Failure

“You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Failure

“The dog has seldom been successful in pulling Man up to its level of sagacity, but Man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"An Introduction", The Fireside Book of Dog Stories (Simon and Schuster, 1943); reprinted in Thurber's Dogs (1955)
From other writings

Dogs

“The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.”

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

Life, Dreams

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”

George Sheehan Irish footballer

Courageous, Success, Courage, Personality

“Failure is just a few seconds away from success.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

Failure

“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Five: Lightness and Weight

Children, Tear, Grass

“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)
Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
Context: There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.
Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else.

Life, Understanding

“Better to be the failure who nobly strived than the success who never really had to.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Firstborn

Failure

“To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

World, History, Birth, Happiness

“Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail…”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

Selfishness

“Success equals goals; all else is commentary.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark into the world.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Lexie Darnell, Chapter 13, p. 205
Source: 2000s, True Believer (2005)
Context: In her new, more mature incarnation, she embraced the idea that maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark in the world.

Life, World, Thinking, Happiness

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Fall 1943
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Journals Of Anais Nin Volume 3

Truth

“America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

World

“Without Struggle There Is No Success”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Variant: Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave and Essays

“Shame resilience is the ability to say, “This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Disappointment, Courage, Hurt

“What is success?" poses the Copt. "It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Variant: What is success? It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace
Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Peace, Soul, Night

“If you want to be successful, it's just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Love

“In truth, the degree of anyone's success depends on how often they can say the word yes and hear the word no.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Tell-All

Source: Tell-All

Truth, Dependency

“Why be a man when you can be a success.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

“… art is made by the alone for the alone… The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication…”

Cyril Connolly (1903–1974) British author

Source: The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus

Art

“Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice & private initiative -- the building blocks of success throughout our society.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Education, Parent

“Success on the outside means nothing unless you also have success within.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams Reaching Your Destiny

“Your success as a family… our success as a nation… depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.”

Barbara Bush (1925–2018) former First Lady of the United States

Family, Housing, Dependency

“If you try to be anyone but yourself, you will fail; if you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there's no success like failure”

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

Failure, Heart

“A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

Life, Truth, Beauty, Search

“I should be a success and I'm not and other people- younger people- are. Younger people than me are on TV and getting their lives in order. I'm still a nobody. When am I going to not be a nobody?”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People

“Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer

The first published appearance of this "ad" is on the first page of a 1949 book by Julian Lewis Watkins, The 100 Greatest Advertisements: Who Wrote Them and What They Did. (Moore Publishing Company), except with the Americanized word "honor", rather than "honour".

Men

“True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Source: Role Models

Life, Jerk

“Going for it and changing what you could change-that's what success was all about.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Heartbreaker

Change

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Man kann sich des Eindrucks nicht erwehren, daß die Menschen gemeinhin mit falschen Maßstäben messen, Macht, Erfolg und Reichtum für sich anstreben und bei anderen bewundern, die wahren Werte des Lebens aber unterschätzen.
Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 1, as translated by James Strachey, p.25

Life, People, Falseness, Wealth