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Success Quotes and Quotations
 I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.  Nothing recedes like success. Perseverance, n.: A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves a glorious success. Success for the striver washes away the effort of striving. - Pindar The penalty of success is to be bored by people who used to snub you. The secret of success is constancy to purpose. There are few successful adults who were not first successful children. What is success? To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; That is to have succeeded. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. The world belongs to the enthusiast who keeps cool. Out of every fruition of success, no matter what, comes forth something to make a new effort necessary. Though a tree grow ever so high, the falling leaves return to the root. Success is that old ABC- ability, breaks and courage. How can they say my life isn't a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten? You always pass failure on the way to success. Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings. High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace. Everything bows to success, even grammar. Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it. - Voltaire The successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at. It is no use saying 'we are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. Survival is triumph enough. It takes time to be a success, but time is all it takes. There is a passion for perfection which you will rarely see fully developed; but you may note this fact, that in successful lives it is never wholly lacking. Nothing fails like success; nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant cause. The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure. Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; If not, by any means get wealth and place. Success is not so much what you are, but rather what you appear to be. I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is - try to please everybody. Success has made failures of many men. A successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive. Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. Failure changes for the better, success for the worse. - Seneca Behind every successful man there's a lot of unsuccessful years. If people knew what they had to do to be successful, most people wouldn't. The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together. Damon Runyon. A day-coach boy in a parlor car seat. There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. Find a need and fill it. The successful person is the individual who forms the habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do. The victory of success is half done when one gains the habit of work. The secret of every man who has ever been successful lies in the fact that he formed the bait of doing those things that failures don't like to do. Nature gave men two ends-one to sit on, and one to think with. Ever since then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most. Make yourself indispensable and you'll be moved up. Act as if you're indispensable and you'll be moved out. What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love. ... Give it the best there is in you.... Seize your opportunities. ... And be a member of the team. Vacillating people seldom succeed. They seldom win the solid respect of their fellows. Successful men and women are very careful in reaching decisions, and very persistent and determined in action thereafter. Many people have the ambition to succeed; they may even have a special aptitude for their job. And yet they do not move ahead. Why? Perhaps they think that since they can master the job, there is no need to master themselves. I've been polite and I've always shown up. Somebody asked me if I had any advice for young people entering the business. I said: "Yeah, show up." The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket. I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. Success is that old ABC-Ability, Breaks and Courage. The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imaged, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success. To be ambitious for wealth, and yet always expecting to be poor; to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure. No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible. I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is-try to please everybody. We may fail of our happiness, strive we ever so bravely, but we are less likely to fail if we measure with judgement our chances and our capabilities. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.... A determinate purpose in life and a steady adhesion to it through all disadvantages are indispensable conditions of success. The conditions of conquest are always easy. We have but to toil awhile, endure awhile, believe always, and never turn back. The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it. I studied the lives of great men and famous women; and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work. Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but the principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure. Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it.... Success is shy-it won't come out while you're watching. Three outstanding qualities make for success: judgement, industry, health. And the greatest of these is judgement. Thirteen virtues necessary for true success: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Find a need and fill it. Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. Four steps to achievement: plan purposefully, prepare prayerfully, proceed positively, pursue persistently. Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful. Always aim for achievement, and forget about success. Success, which is something so simple in the end, is made up of thousands of things, we never fully know what. Self-trust is the first secret of success. The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed. So once I shut down my privilege of disliking anyone I choose and holding myself aloof if I could manage it, greater understanding, growing compassion came to me. The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. Remember, the bread you meet each day is still rising. Don't scare the dough. The art of dealing with people is the foremost secret of successful men. A man's success in handling people is the very yardstick by which the outcome of his whole life's work is measured. The ability to form friendships, to make people believe in you and trust you is one of the few absolutely fundamental qualities of success. Selling, buying, negotiating are so much smoother and easier when the parties enjoy each other's confidence. The young man who can make friends quickly will find that he will glide, instead of stumble, through life. Networking is an enrichment program, not an entitlement program. Respect for people is the cornerstone of communication and networking. No matter how much a man can do, no matter how engaging his personality may be, he will not advance far in business if he cannot work through others. The way to rise is to obey and please. Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either. Whatever your grade or position, if you know how and when to speak, and when to remain silent, your chances of real success are proportionately increased. That they can strengthen through the empowerment of others is essential wisdom often gathered by women. A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm. You have to block everything out and be extremely focused and be relaxed and mellow too. I've never sought success in order to get fame and money; it's the talent and the passion that count in success. Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn't can never know what it is. The world belongs to the energetic. I feel that one must deliberate then act, must scan every life choice with rational thinking but then base the decision on whether one's heart will be in it. Since everything is in our heads, we better not lose them. There is a passion for perfection which you rarely see fully developed; but you may note this fact, that in successful lives it is never wholly lacking. Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed "dignity" to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up! People are subject to moods, to temptations and fears, lethargy and aberration and ignorance, and the staunchest qualities shift under the stresses and strains of daily life. Whoever said, "It's not whether you win or lose that counts," probably lost. If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don't, you have achieved half your failure. Someone's always saying, "It's not whether you win or lose," but if you feel that way, you're as good as dead. The real difference between men is energy. Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. To bring one's self to a frame of mind and to the proper energy to accomplish things that require plain hard work continuously is the one big battle that everyone has. When this battle is won for all time, then everything is easy. We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. Faith that the thing can be done is essential to any great achievement. Sometimes success is due less to ability than to zeal. We can accomplish almost anything within our ability if we but think that we can! Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and of true progress. Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars. The will to conquer is the first condition of victory. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing. The real secret of success is enthusiasm. Yes, more than enthusiasm, I would say excitement. I like to see men get excited. When they get excited, they make a success of their lives. It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it. The measure of an enthusiasm must be taken between interesting events. It is between bites that the lukewarm angler loses heart. Enthusiasm for one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it. To burn always with this hard gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. Every man is enthusiastic at times. One man has enthusiasm for thirty minutes, another man has it for thirty days. But it is the man who has it for thirty years who makes a success in life. Man never rises to great truths without enthusiasm. Success is due less to ability than to zeal. I rate enthusiasm even above professional skill. Do it big or stay in bed. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. What a man accomplishes in a day depends upon the way in which he approaches his tasks. When we accept tough jobs as a challenge to our ability and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen. When we do our work with a dynamic conquering spirit, we get things done. If you're not happy every morning when you get up, leave for work, or start to work at home, if you're not enthusiastic about doing that, you're not going to be successful. The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor. A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means. If you want to succeed, you must make your own opportunities as you go. A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. No man will succeed unless he is ready to face and overcome difficulties and prepared to assume responsibilities. Man is still responsible. ... His success lies not with the stars, but with himself. He must carry on the fight of self-correction and discipline. No one can help you in holding a good job except Old Man You. Under normal periods, any man's success hinges about five percent on what others do for him and 95 percent on what he does. If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one. The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the sum of his own works. If a man wants his dreams to come true, he must wake up. Pa, he always said a man had to look spry for himself, because nobody would do it for him; your opportunities didn't come knocking around, you had to hunt them down and hog-tie them. Men at some time are masters of their fates. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. Every man is the architect of his own fortune. - Sallust The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success. If the risk-reward ratio is right, you can make big money buying trouble. What isn't tried won't work. He that is overcautious will accomplish little. All great reforms require one to dare a lot to win a little. If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much. The ambitious climbs high and perilous stairs and never cares how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall. He that would have fruit must climb the tree. To get profit without risk, experience without danger and reward without work is as impossible as it is to live without being born. Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other. The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor. Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks. Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. No one reaches a high position without daring. Cadillacs are down at the end of the bat. It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks. You can't expect to hit the jackpot if you don't put a few nickels in the machine. Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing. Progress always involves risks. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first. I don't think about risks much. I just do what I want to do. If you gotta go, you gotta go. Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You can't catch trout with dry breeches. Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. Because a fellow has failed once or twice or a dozen times, you don't want to set him down as a failure till he's dead or loses his courage-and that's the same thing. What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree? To persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage. The coward despairs. Whatever you do, you need courage. ... To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing. Have the courage of your desire. To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage. It takes vision and courage to create- it takes faith and courage to prove. No great thing comes to any man unless he has courage. Great things are done more through courage than through wisdom. Courage permits the caliber of performance to continue at its peak, until the finish line is crossed. Failure is only postponed success as long as courage "coaches" ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory. Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear, and obstacles vanish into air. You will never do anything in this world without courage. It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded. Where there is a brave man, in the thickest of the fight, there is the post of honor. Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. There are a lot of fellas with all the ability it takes to play in the major leagues, but they never make it, they always get stuck in the minor leagues because they haven't got the guts to make the climb. Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. One of the biggest factors in success is the courage to undertake something. It is weak and despicable to go on wanting things and not trying to get them. The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile. I think of my strawberry souffle. I did that at least twenty-eight times before I finally conquered it. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Half effort does not produce half results. It produces no results. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last. If a man wakes up famous he hasn't been sleeping. What it comes down to is that anybody can win with the best horse. What makes you good is if you can take the second or third best horse and win. Success is dependent on effort. Success comes before work only in the dictionary. Success is having a flair for the thing that you are doing, knowing that is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a sense of purpose. Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted. Sweat plus sacrifice equals success. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. Excellence in any pursuit is the late, ripe fruit of toil. It's in the preparation-in those dreary pedestrian virtues they taught you in seventh grade and you didn't believe. It's making the extra call and caring a lot. In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. It is no use saying "we are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself. Until they are of the age to use the brain. Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it's intimate and psychological-resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul. Since when do grown men and women, who presume to hold high government office and exercise what they think of as "moral leadership," require ethics officers to tell them whether it is or isn't permissible to grab the secretary's behind or redirect public funds to their own personal advantage? Vice Is nice But a little virtue Won't hurt you. The lesser evil is also evil. The great majority of successful business men and women have been and are possessors of strong personalities of the right sort, and by analyzing their climb to success it is amazing to discover how large a part good manners, good breeding, and correct behavior have had in helping them to win the goal. I don't eat junk food and I don't think junk thoughts. The Department of Justice is committed to asking one central question of everything we do: What is the right thing to do? Now that can produce debate, and I want it to be spirited debate. I want the lawyers of America to be able to call me and tell me: Janet, have you lost your mind? The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. Many people who wonder why they don't amount to more than they do have good stuff in them, and are energetic, persevering, and have ample opportunities. It is all a case of trimming the useless branches and throwing the whole force of power into the development of something that counts. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression. Will you be satisfied with the fruit of your life's work? Will the efforts you are making now bring you satisfaction when the things of time are receding, and eternity looms ahead? The act of acting morally is behaving as if everything we do matters. I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word-politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit. Success ... depends on your ability to make and keep friends. Some men succeed by what they know; some by what they do; and a few by what they are. Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value. It is abundantly clear that success tends to negate humility. Success seems to be that which forms the distinction between confidence and conceit. The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. If a man be self-controlled, truthful, wise, and resolute, is there aught that can stay out of reach of such a man? Character is the real foundation of all worthwhile success. One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once. If you can't accept losing, you can't win. You can't have any successes unless you can accept failure. We have fought this fight as long, and as well, as we know how. We have been defeated ... there is now but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation. The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses. An error gracefully acknowledged is a victory won. The man who can own up to his error is greater than he who merely knows how to avoid making it. I have made mistakes, but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I never made one. I am not the smartest or most talented person in the world, but I succeeded because I keep going, and going, and going. Victory belongs to the most persevering. You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea. It never pays to deal with the flyweights of the world. They take far too much pleasure in thwarting you at every turn. I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. There is no point at which you can say, "Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap." I wrote for twelve years and collected 250 rejection slips before getting any fiction published, so I guess outside reinforcement isn't all that important to me. I used to want the words "She tried" on my tombstone. Now I want "She did it." Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed. I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword. I will tell the truth whenever I please. Once I decide to do something, I can't have people telling me I can't. If there's a roadblock, you jump over it, walk around it, crawl under it. Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. Call the roll in your memory of conspicuously successful business giants and ... you will be struck by the fact that almost every one of them encountered inordinate difficulties sufficient to crush all but the gamest of spirits. Edison went hungry many times before he became famous. Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself. If your efforts are sometimes greeted with indifference, don't lose heart. The sun puts on a wonderful show at daybreak, yet most of the people in the audience go on sleeping. If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend. Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth. The only thing that happens overnight is recognition. Not talent. If you rest, you rust. If you don't quit, and don't cheat, and don't run home when trouble arrives, you can only win. They who are the most persistent, and work in the true spirit, will invariably be the most successful. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average. The only way to the top is by persistent, intelligent, hard work. The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night. I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn't give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you. Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. Four steps to achievement: plan purposefully, prepare prayerfully, proceed positively, pursue persistently. The secret of success is constancy of purpose. I'm hardnosed about luck. I think it sucks. Yeah, if you spend seven years looking for a job as a copywriter, and then one day somebody gives you a job, you can say, "Gee, I was lucky I happened to go up there today." But dammit, I was going to go up there sooner or later in the next seventy years. ... If you're persistent in trying and doing and working, you almost make your own fortune. Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. It's the plugging away that will win you the day So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit, it's so easy to quit- It's the keeping your chin up that's hard. No one succeeds without effort.... Those who succeed owe their success to their perseverance. Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting. Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence. There are a lot of people out there with good and marketable ideas, but pure entrepreneurial types almost never accept defeat. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it. ... You start out lowly and humble and you carefully try to learn an accretion of little things that help you get there. Continuous effort-not strength or intelligence-is the key to unlocking our potential. Plodding wins the race. - Aesop The difficulties and struggles of today are but the price we must pay for the accomplishments and victories of tomorrow. Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins. It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports. What's tough is being good every day. If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna. There's such a thin line between winning and losing. Men who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others idled, have persevered when others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success so often erroneously attributed to good luck. In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm; in the real world, all rests on perseverance. It takes time to be a success. Actually, I'm an overnight success. But it took twenty years. It takes time to succeed because success is merely the natural reward for taking time to do anything well. Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed. It takes twenty years to make an overnight success. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves-to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before. Success has always been easy to measure. It is the distance between one's origins and one's final achievement. How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten? Survival is triumph enough. Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming. Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The man who has done his level best, and who is conscious that he has done his best, is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure. My success is measured by my willingness to keep trying. If you've had a good time playing the game, you're a winner even if you lose. Success is living up to your potential. That's all. Wake up with a smile and go after life.... Live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. - Bible On earth we have nothing to do with success or results, but only with being true to God, and for God. Defeat in doing right is nevertheless victory. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. I'd rather be a lamppost in Chicago than a millionaire in any other city. A successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives, and not in what he is able to receive. There is only one success-to be able to spend your life in your own way. We only do well the things we like doing. - Colette The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy ... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be? Success based on anything but internal fulfillment is bound to be empty. All I would tell people is to hold on to what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own terms. For me, writing is the only thing that passes the three tests of metier: (1) when I'm doing it, I don't feel that I should be doing something else instead; (2.) it produces a sense of accomplishment and, once in a while, pride; and (3) it's frightening. My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general, if you become a monk you'll end up as the pope." Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. Abasement, degradation is simply the manner of life of the man who has refused to be what it is his duty to be. Different people have different duties assigned to them by Nature; Nature has given one the power or the desire to do this, the other that. Each bird must sing with his own throat. A first rate soup is better than a second rate painting. We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. I'd rather be a lamppost in Chicago than a millionaire in any other city. We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects. A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day. Don't take anyone else's definition of success as your own. (This is easier said than done.) Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. Ask yourself the secret of your success. Listen to your answer, and practice it. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do something that I can do. Starting out to make money is the greatest mistake in life. Do what you feel you have a flair for doing, and if you are good enough at it, the money will come. If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know. One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. Oh! Much may be done by defying The ghosts of Despair and Dismay And much may be gained by relying On "Where there's a Will There's a Way." We can never give up the belief that good guys always win. And that we are the good guys. I know there will be spring, as surely as the birds know it when they see above the snow two tiny, quivering green leaves. Spring cannot fail us. Most ball games are lost, not won. Never face facts; if you do you'll never get up in the morning. Before you can win a game, you have to not lose it. Football games aren't won, they're lost. Success is a journey, not a destination. The journey is my home. To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor. The man who goes fishing gets something more than the fish he catches. Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal, but by the grandness of effort involved in getting there-or failing to get there. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. The reward of the general is not a bigger tent, but command. It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. We're still not where we're going, but we're not where we were. 'Tis the motive exalts the action, 'Tis the doing, and not the deed. Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another. I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience-and laughter. It has never been, and never will be, easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination. In the long run, the pessimist may be proved to be right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip. The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. The problem is not that you cannot have what you think you want. The problem is that when you get what you think you want, it won't satisfy. We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire. With the catching ends the pleasures of the chase. To have realized your dream makes you feel lost. Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void. We spend our time searching for security, and hate it when we get it. Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling. Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it is too late. The really happy man is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour. You wear yourself out in the pursuit of wealth or love or freedom, you do everything to gain some right, and once it's gained you take no pleasure in it. Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed. Granting our wish is one of Fate's saddest jokes. Now that I'm here, where am I? Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That's why it satisfies nobody. Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment? Nothing fails like success; nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant cause. There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it. Success has ruined many a man. Fame always brings loneliness. Success is as ice cold and lonely as the North Pole. Success has killed more men than bullets. Achievement: The death of an endeavor, and the birth of disgust. Success and failure are equally disastrous. The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult. We are never further from our wishes than when we imagine that we possess what we have desired. Some aspects of success seem rather silly as death approaches. Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom. If I had known what it would be like to have it all, I might have been willing to settle for less. Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure. The two hardest things to handle in life are failure and success. The best thing that can come with success is the knowledge that it is nothing to long for. The closer one gets to the top, the more one finds there is no "top." Oh, how quickly the world's glory passes away. The minute you think you've got it made, disaster is just around the corner. Creating success is tough. But keeping it is tougher. You have to keep producing, you can't ever stop. Out of every fruition of success, no matter what, comes forth something to make a new effort necessary. The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in business. You've got to keep working that talent. We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified. - Aesop Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won. Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters of life begin when you get what you want. We grow weary of those things (and perhaps soonest) which we most desire. Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us. Oddly enough, success over a period of time is more expensive than failure. There must be more to life than having everything! It's not that I'm not grateful for all this attention. It's just that fame and fortune ought to add up to more than fame and fortune. If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat. One more such victory and we are undone. - Pyrrhus Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it. The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its terrors. Who is more deprived and alone than the man who has achieved his dream? Success can also cause misery. The trick is not to be surprised when you discover it doesn't bring you all the happiness and answers you thought it would. - Prince Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man, but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity. To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world-that I am able to change it in positive ways. If you have a good name, if you are right more often than you are wrong, if your children respect you, if your grandchildren are glad to see you, if your friends can count on you and you can count on them in time of trouble, if you can face your God and say "I have done my best," then you are a success. Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed. I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to his or her fellow human beings. He has achieved success, who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children. Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others. If you have a good name, if you are right more often than you are wrong, if your children respect you, if your grandchildren are glad to see you, if your friends can count on you and you can count on them in time of trouble, if you can face your God and say, "I have done my best," then you are a success. Success is the sweetest revenge. You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity. A woman who is loved always has success. Success is not a doorway, it's a staircase. There is no scientific answer for success. You can't define it. You've simply got to live it and do it. Marconi invented radio, but Ted Husing knew what to do with it. The ultimate of being successful is the luxury of giving yourself the time to do what you want to do. I don't think success is harmful, as so many people say. Rather I believe it indispensible to talent: if for nothing else than to increase the talent. Success produces success, just as money produces money. If I do have some success, I'd like to enjoy it, for heaven's sake! What is the point of having it otherwise? God may allow His servant to succeed when He has disciplined him to a point where he does not need to succeed to be happy. The man who is elated by success and is cast down by failure is still a carnal man. At best his fruit will have a worm in it. There is no business in the world so troublesome as the pursuit of fame: life is over before you have hardly begun your work. Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure. The insight to see possible new paths, the courage to try them, the judgment to measure results-these are the qualities of a leader. Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the effort of willing, they become fanatics about conservatism. Success is a great healer. All outward success, when it has value, is but the inevitable result of an inward success of full living, full play and enjoyment of one's faculties. There are three types of baseball players-those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened. The exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success is our national disease. Success causes us to be more praised than known. Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom. Fame has only the span of the day, they say. But to live in the hearts of people-that is worth something. - Ouida Great men have not been concerned with fame. The joy of achievement that comes from finding something new in the universe is by far their greatest joy. Out of the strain of the Doing, into the peace of the Done. Success is like a liberation, or the first phase of a love affair. There is always room at the top. An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by its own fullness, not by its reception. The best place to succeed is where you are with what you have. Success covers a multitude of blunders. How to succeed: try hard enough. How to fail: Try too hard. I have found that it is much easier to make a success in life than to make a success of one's life. There could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat. Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is living, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger. When there is no feeling of accomplishment, children fail to develop properly and old people rapidly decline. Those who have easy, cheerful attitudes tend to be happier than those with less pleasant temperaments, regardless of money, "making it," or success. Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do or die. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the hard may be; for without victory there is no survival. In war there is no second prize for the runner-up. Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure. Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable. When asked how long I've worked here, I replied, "since the day they threatened to fire me." He must really be a big success - even his mother-in-law admits it. The only time you find success before work is in the dictionary. The haves and the have-nots can often be traced back to the dids and the did-nots. Behind every successful man is a woman - with nothing to wear. She's the kind of woman who climbed the ladder of success, wrong by wrong. - Mae West If at first you succeed, don't take any more stupid chances. This guy put the suck in success. As soon as you find the key to success, somebody always changes the lock. The penalty of success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you. Certainly I believe in luck. How else do you explain the success of those you don't like? Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it. A leading authority is anyone who has guessed right more than once. The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault. My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. Sleep, riches, and health, to be truly enjoyed, must be interrupted. Sometimes "the fool who rushes in" gets the job done. I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific. Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity. There is some consolation in the fact that, even though your dreams don't come true, neither do your nightmares. Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each one. If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it. Progress means taking risks, for you can't steal home and keep your foot on third base. We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. If you lose, you're going to be fired, and if you win, you only put off the day you're going to be fired. Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna, or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out. Successful minds work like a gimlet, - to a single point. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure. Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. Nothing succeeds like success. There are but two ways of rising in the world: either by one's own industry or profiting by the foolishness of others. I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise. Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, And looks to that alone; Laughs at impossibilities, And cries it shall be done. Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it. - Ovid To climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first. Somebodys said that it couldn't be done, But he with a chuckle replied That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin On his face. If he worried he hid it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn't be done, and he did it. And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. 
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