Orison Swett Marden Quotes - Page 3

People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others so them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence.

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!

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

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.

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.

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

Your outlook upon life, your estimate of yourself, your estimate of your value are largely colored by your environment. Your whole career will be modified, shaped, molded by your surroundings, by the character of the people with whom you come in contact every day.

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

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

The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably thought and act.

What are stumbling blocks and defeat to the weak and vacillating are but stepping stones to victory to the determined soul.

He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't.

Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. What he at first chooses, at last compels.

Aspiration lifts the life; groveling lowers it. When we are striving for excellence in everything we do the entire life grows and expands, but if we allow our standards to drop, there is a natural progression that follows, a tendency for a downward effort in all that we do thereafter.

Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

There is no stimulus like that which comes from the consciousness of knowing that others believe in us.

Absorb knowledge from every possible source and opportunity. Power gravitates to the man who knows how and why.

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.

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.

Work, love and play are the great balance wheels of man's being.

Begin where you are; work where you are; the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success may be crowded with grand possibilities.

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.

Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark.

If we put the emphasis upon the right things, if we live the life that is worth while and then fail, we will survive all disasters, we will out-live all misfortune. We should be so well balanced and symmetrical, that nothing which could ever happen could throw us off our center, so that no matter what misfortune should overtake us, there would still be a whole magnificent man or woman left after being stripped of everything else.

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.