quotations about success
Nothing succeeds like success.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
I think, likewise, that some sense of being successful lies in knowing what scale you work best in. I give some examples: an astronomer is one whose mind can work on a cosmic scale. A physicist is one whose mind can handle the quantum scale. A theologian the metaphysical scale. A psychiatrist works with the deep picture and on and on and on. I think many people die confused and unfulfilled, because they spend a life trying to perform above or even below their abilities and perspective. They are in the wrong scale.
ROBERT FULGHUM
interview, Future Health, January 14, 2010
Overnight success happens only in fairy tales, trashy novels, and bad movies.
ERNIE J. ZELINSKI
101 Really Important Things You Already Know But Keep Forgetting
There are very few cases of overnight success. Most success cases--including rock bands who seem to explode out of nowhere--involve longer term persistence and commitment to an interest.
PATRICK COMBS
Major in Success
No matter whether failure came
A thousand different times,
For one brief moment of success,
Life rang its golden chimes.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"I Am Content"
The highest and best sense in which a life is a success is within the reach of everyone. The successful life is a happy one, availing itself of the many advantages of personal culture, enjoying the sweetness and comfort of home, no matter how simple or even scanty the material furnishing may be. Above all money considerations, we may develop sterling, manly characters and have here and now the joy of heaven in our hearts and the life of heaven in our lives.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.
STEVE JOBS
interview, MSNBC, May 25, 2006
It wasn't until I'd met everyone else's measure of success that I realized I'd failed myself.
RICK REMENDER
Black Science, No. 1, November 2013
You can make a lot of money. You can rule kingdoms or run huge businesses or control vast terrain. But if you're just doing it for yourself, you're not really a success.
ANTHONY ROBBINS
Unlimited Power: a Black Choice
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained in sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upwards in the night.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Ladder of St. Augustine"
In Success few mornings frown;
For the youth, to view the town,
When morning came, with Sorrow went
Through statued park and street;
And they joined a gilded throng,
As it coldly moved along
Toward the temple built to Fortune,
Low to worship at her feet.
HENRY ABBEY
"The City of Success"
Success is in the student, not in the university; greatness is in the individual, not in the library; power is in the man, not in his crutches. A great man will make opportunities, even out of the commonest and meanest situations. If a man is not superior to his education, is not larger than his crutches or his helps, if he is not greater than the means of his culture, which are but the sign-boards pointing the way to success, he will never reach greatness. Not learning, not culture alone, not helps and opportunities, but personal power and sterling integrity, make a man great.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
Success
The truth is that all of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible whenever we use our native capacities to their greatest extent.
SMILEY BLANTON
Love or Perish
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
BOB DYLAN
Weekly World News, October 1, 1996
The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
MAYA ANGELOU
attributed, Telling It Like It Is
Success serves men as a pedestal. It makes them seem greater when not measured by reflection.
JOSEPH JOUBERT
Pensées
Success produces success, just as money produces money.
SÉBASTIEN CHAMFORT
Maximes et pensées
If you love your work, if you enjoy it, you're already a success.
JACK CANFIELD
The Success Principles
People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.
ANNE SULLIVAN
letter regarding her work with Helen Keller, October 30, 1887