Orison Swett Marden

There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King.

Do not give up your dream because it is apparently not being realized, because you cannot see it coming true. Cling to your vision with all the tenacity you can muster. Keep it bright; do not let the bread-and-butter side of life cloud your ideal or dim it.

Our thoughts and imagination are the only real limits to our possibilities.

The world takes us at our own valuation. It believes in the man who believes in himself, but it has little use for the timid man: the one who is never certain of himself, who cannot rely on his own judgment, who craves advice from others, and is afraid to go ahead on his own account.

The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'

There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance, and half the battle is in the conviction that we can do what we undertake.

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.

No man fails who does his best.

The quality of your work, in the long run, is the deciding factor on how much your services are valued by the world.

It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind.

Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them... they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.

The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.

Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desire.

There is inestimable blessing in a cheerful spirit. When the soul throws its windows wide open, letting in the sunshine, and presenting to all who see it the evidence of its gladness, it is not only happy, but it has an unspeakable power of doing good.

The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.

You are never to allow a shadow of doubt to enter your mind that the Creator intended you to win in life's battle.

True economy means the wisest expenditure of what we have, everything considered, looking at it from the broadest standpoint. It is not a good thing to save a nickel at the expenditure of twenty-five cents' worth of time.

What we do for a living does not matter so much as how we do it. It is the spirit in which we do our work that counts, and that counts through all eternity.

Wanted: a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say 'No,' though all the world say 'Yes.'

Everybody is struggling for the good things of the world, and all the arguments to prove that they are not desirable are worse than wasted.

When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.

We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest.

Existence is the privilege of effort, and when that privilege is met like a man, opportunities to succeed along the line of your aptitude will come faster than you can use them.

If a thing seems to you worth working for at all, if it appears to you of moment enough to challenge any effort, then put into what you do all the enthusiasm of which you are capable, regardless of criticism.

Every man ultimately falls into the company with which he affiliates. And he is the strongest who draws men to himself, who creates the company; and this is through having a positive quality - courage and physical prowess.

The size of your accomplishments, the quality of your achievement, will depend very largely on how big a man you see in yourself, what sort of image you get of your possible self, yourself at your best.

There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.

Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.

Many a man owes his advancement very largely to his ability to converse well. The ability to interest people in your conversation, to hold them, is a great power.

Be larger than your task.

It is every one's sacred duty to keep himself in a condition to do the biggest thing possible to him.

No man can be ideally successful until he has found his place. Like a locomotive he is strong on the track, but weak anywhere else.

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.

One of the greatest boons that can ever come to a human being is to be born on a farm and reared in the country. Self-reliance and grit are oftenest country-bred.

It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining that he has no time or opportunity.

When the sacredness of one's word is matched in the attributes of his character throughout, all that constitutes a man, then we find that there is something in a man's life greater than his occupation or his achievements; grander than acquisition or wealth; higher than genius; more enduring than fame.

Put variety into your mental bill of fare as well as into your physical. It will pay you rich returns.

One should live between extravagance and meanness. Don't save money by starving your mind. It is false economy never to take a holiday, or never to spend money for an evening's amusement or for a useful book.

We fail to see that we can control our destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible; make ourselves become whatever we long to be.

What is enthusiasm but a passionate belief in what seems to be a high and holy aim - an unselfish devotion to some noble cause - a consecration of heart and mind and soul to the attainment of a great object?

We are all the products of our own thoughts. Whatever we concentrate upon, that we are.

Put the uncommon effort into the common task... make it large by doing it in a great way.

When the mind has once formed the habit of holding cheerful, happy, prosperous pictures, it will not be easy to form the opposite habit.

Life is a great university for the unfolding of the mind, for developing character. In choosing our life work, when we are free to choose, we should remember this, and choose that which will call the biggest man or woman out of us and not that from which we can coin the most dollars.

If we hold the poverty thought, the penury thought, the thought of lack, we cannot demonstrate abundance. We must hold the plenty thought if we would reach plenty.

When we begin to desire a thing, to yearn for it with all our hearts, we begin to establish relationship with it in proportion to the strength and persistency of our longing and intelligent effort to realize it.

Our dreaming capacity gives us a peep into the glorious realities that await us further on. It is the evidence of things possible to us.

Live in the very soul of expectation of better things, in the conviction that something large, grand, and beautiful will await you if your efforts are intelligent, if your mind is kept in a creative condition and you struggle upward to your goal.

Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.

A good system shortens the road to the goal.