Orison Swett Marden Quotes

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.

A woman who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes her work with the assurance of success magnetizes her condition. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

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

If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.

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.

Opportunities? They are all around us ... There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it.

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.

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.

Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hallmark of excellence.

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.

But how shall I get ideas? ''Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind - Act!

It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.

This is the test of your manhood: How much is there left in you after you have lost everything outside of yourself?

Whatever our creed, we feel that no good deed can by any possibility go unrewarded, no evil deed unpunished.

Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.

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

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

We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it including the thorns.

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.

The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling.

It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.

What a great discrepancy there is between people and the results they achieve! It is due to the difference in their power of calling together all the rays of their ability, and concentrating them upon one point.

Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes - every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man.

Every germ of goodness will at last struggle into bloom and fruitage...true success follows every right step.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

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.

Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.