quotations about success
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failure.
SAMUEL SMILES
Self-Help
Success is sweet: the sweeter if long delayed and attained through manifold struggles and defeats.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
The secret of success is this: There is no secret of success.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there.
IRVING BERLIN
Theatre Arts, February 1958
Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.
ALAN ARKIN
An Improvised Life
Success is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each one.
BARBRA STREISAND
attributed, Little Giant Encyclopedia of Inspirational Quotes
The certainty of succeeding makes the road easy.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Success had ruined many a man.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanac
Society functions in a way much more interesting than the multiple-choice pattern we have been rewarded for succeeding at in school. Success in life comes not from the ability to choose between the four presented answers, but from the rather more difficult and painfully acquired ability to formulate the questions.
DAVID MAMET
The Secret Knowledge
JACK CANFIELD
The Success Principles
No amount of reading or memorizing will make you successful in life. It is the understanding and application of wise thought which counts.
BOB PROCTOR
You Were Born Rich
Success is a pile of failure that you are standing on.
DAVE RAMSEY
daily tip, official Dave Ramsey website
Success in business, as in life, is often largely just a matter of luck.
FELIX G. ROHATYN
Dealings: A Political and Financial Life
It must be admitted that the pleasure of a long-sought, ardently desired success, dreamed of by night and toiled for by day, is, probably, as complete as anything this side of heaven.
WILLIAM MATHEWS
Hints on Success in Life
The greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once; for all these successive failures induce a skill which is so much additional power working into the final achievement.... The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys.... Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Confident expectation of success makes us a receiving instrument for all the success thoughts that are vibrating through the ether of the atmosphere, and our mind becomes a powerful magnet to draw success thought.
WALTER MATTHEWS
"Success", Human Life from Many Angles
The thing I remember best about "successful people" I've met is their obvious delight in what they do. And their delight seems to have very little to do with the trappings of worldly success.
FRED ROGERS
You Are Special: Neighborly Wit and Wisdom from Mister Rogers
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.
WALTER LIPPMANN
A Preface to Politics
Remember that your real success takes place inside your mind. It's not facts, nor others' acts, nor events, that matter. Nothing matters in the long run but the temper of your spirit. Keep thinking success; and the more you are rebuffed the harder you must think it.
FRANK CRANE
"Ten Success Hunches", Four Minute Essays
If a man has directed his course to great ends there is compensation even in ruin.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life