quotations about success
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
The secret of success is this: There is no secret of success.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
The certainty of succeeding makes the road easy.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Even success needs its consolations.
GEORGE ELIOT
letter to J. W. Cross, June 3, 1876
All successful men have agreed in one thing--they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things. A belief in causality, or strict connection between every trifle and the principle of being, and, in consequence, belief in compensation, or, that nothing is got for nothing--characterizes all valuable minds, and must control every effort that is made by an industrious one. The most valiant men are the best believers in the tension of the laws.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
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
Many a man can make a success of everything but himself.
EDGAR GUEST
Home Rhymes
Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.
DAVID G. MYERS
Exploring Psychology
Success isn't outscoring someone, it's the peace of mind that comes from self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best. Success is a journey, not a destination--half the fun is getting there.
GITA BELLIN
A Sharing of Completion and Celebration
He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.
HORACE
Epistles
Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
There are two kinds of success, or rather two kinds of ability displayed in the achievement of success. There is, first, the success either in big things or small things which comes to the man who has in him the natural power to do what no one else can do, and what no amount of training, no perseverance or will power, will enable any ordinary man to do. This success, of course, like every other kind of success, may be on a very big scale or on a small scale. The quality which the man possesses may be that which enables him to run a hundred yards in nine and three-fifths seconds, or to play ten separate games of chess at the same time blindfolded, or to add five columns of figures at once without effort, or to write the "Ode to a Grecian Urn," or to deliver the Gettysburg speech, or to show the ability of Frederick at Leuthen or Nelson at Trafalgar. No amount of training of body or mind would enable any good ordinary man to perform any one of these feats. Of course the proper performance of each implies much previous study or training, but in no one of them is success to be attained save by the altogether exceptional man who has in him the something additional which the ordinary man does not have. This is the most striking kind of success, and it can be attained only by the man who has in him the quality which separates him in kind no less than in degree from his fellows. But much the commoner type of success in every walk of life and in every species of effort is that which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the degree of development which he has given that quality. This kind of success is open to a large number of persons, if only they seriously determine to achieve it. It is the kind of success which is open to the average man of sound body and fair mind, who has no remarkable mental or physical attributes, but who gets just as much as possible in the way of work out of the aptitudes that he does possess. It is the only kind of success that is open to most of us. Yet some of the greatest successes in history have been those of this second class--when I call it second class I am not running it down in the least, I am merely pointing out that it differs in kind from the first class. To the average man it is probably more useful to study this second type of success than to study the first. From the study of the first he can learn inspiration, he can get uplift and lofty enthusiasm. From the study of the second he can, if he chooses, find out how to win a similar success himself.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
Poverty, many can endure with dignity. Success, how few can carry off, even with decency and without baring their innermost infirmities before the public gaze!
ROBERT BONTINE CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM
Success and Other Sketches
Just and noble minds rejoice in other men's success.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Success demands singleness of purpose.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership
Failure seems to be regarded as the one unpardonable crime, success as the all-redeeming virtue.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
"A Chapter of Erie", North American Review, July 1869
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.
BARBARA WALTERS
Newsweek, May 6, 1974
There's no point in success if you don't let it go to your head. That's what it's for.
JOHN OTWAY
attributed, London Sunday Correspondent, May 6, 1990
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
We often set up as a model the man with a large fortune, rather than the man of integrity of soul, and urge our youth to emulate him. If fortune fails to smile on us in filling our coffers, we count that we have not made a success in life.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light