Orison Swett Marden Quotes

Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us.

Money, influence, and position are nothing compared with brains, principles, energy and perseverances.

The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember of them, but from their suggestiveness, their character-building power.

The secret of happiness is in a cheerful, contented mind. He is poor who is dissatisfied; he is rich who is contented with what he has, and can enjoy what others own.

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

The power of material things, to bestow happiness, to bring joy into the life is tremendously exaggerated. But The right mental attitude for example gratitude that things are not worse, the trained mind the right habits of thought - lifeskills, will bring to us the best there is in the universe.

Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy with you or you will never find it.

The glow of satisfaction which follows the consciousness of doing our level best never comes to a human being from any other experience.

The greatest trouble with most of us is that our demands upon ourselves are so feeble, the call upon the great within of us so weak and intermittent that it makes no impression upon the creative energies; it lacks the force that transmutes desires into realities.

We lift ourselves by our own thought; we climb upon our vision of ourselves.

If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself.

It is what we do easily and what we like to do that we do well.

The influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor.

No man is beaten until his hope is annihilated, his confidence gone, As long as a man faces life hopefully, confidently, triumphantly, he is not a failure; he is not beaten until he turns his back on life.

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.

The first part of success is 'Get-to-it-iveness'; the second part of success is 'Stick-to-it-iveness'.

Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.

Opportunity always looks bigger going than coming.

We lend power to the things we fear!

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.

There is a legend of an artist who long sought for a piece of sandalwood, out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which was destined for the fire. He obeyed and produced a masterpiece from a log of common firewood. Many of us lose great opportunities in life by waiting to find sandalwood for our carvings, when they really lie hidden in the common logs that we burn.

A good system shortens the road to the goal.

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

The successful men of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose.

Laughter brightens the eye, increases the perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the least-used cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or balance which we call health.

The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of the weak.

To think you can creates the force that can.

Poverty often hides her charms under an ugly mask; yet thousands have been forced into greatness by their very struggle to keep the wolf from the door.

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.

The sculptor will chip off all unnecessary material to set free the angel. Nature will chip and pound us remorselessly to bring out our possibilities. She will strip us of wealth, humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, let us down from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thousand ways, if she can develop a little character. Everything must give way to that. Wealth is nothing, position is nothing, fame is nothing, manhood is everything.

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

Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.

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

There is genius in persistence. It conquers all opposers. It gives confidence. It annihilates obstacles. Everybody believes in a determined man. People know that when he undertakes a thing, the battle is half won, for his rule is to accomplish whatever he sets out to do.

If we get the good that belongs to us here and now, we must extract the sweetness of each passing minute while it is ours. That is the real art of living in the today.

When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.

We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.

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.

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.

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

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson.

Self-Control is the very essence of character. To be able to look a man straight in the eye, calmly and deliberately, without the slightest ruffle of temper under extreme provocation, gives a sense of power which nothing else can give. To feel that you are always, not sometimes, master of yourself, gives a dignity and strength to character, buttresses it, supports it on every side, as nothing else can. This is the culmination of thought mastery.

Thrift means that you should always have the best you can possibly afford, when the thing has any reference to your physical and mental health, to your growth in efficiency and power.

Most men fail, not through lack of education or agreeable personal qualities, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless will.

The wearer of smiles and the bearer of a kindly disposition needs no introduction, but is welcome anywhere.

He is the richest man who enriches his country most; in whom the people feel richest and proudest; who gives himself with his money; who opens the doors of opportunity widest to those about him; who is ears to the deaf; eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. Such a man makes every acre of land in his community worth more, and makes richer every man who lives near him.

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.

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.