Orison Swett Marden Quotes

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to win success in spite of every barrier, is the price of all great achievements.

A distinguished investigator in science said that when he encountered an apparently insuperable obstacle, he usually found himself upon the brink of some discovery.

A little boy was asked how he learned to skate. "Oh, by getting up every time I fell down," he replied.

All great works of art have been produced when the artist was intoxicated with the passion for beauty and form which would not let him rest until his thought was expressed in marble or on canvas.

All that is great and noble and true in the history of the world is the result of infinite painstaking, perpetual plodding, of common every-day industry.

A man who thus gives himself wholly to his work is certain to accomplish something; and if he have ability and common sense, his success will be great.

A man who would sell a year of his life for any amount of money would be considered insane, and yet we deliberately choose occupations and vocations which statistics and physicians tell us will be practically sure to cut off from five to twenty-five, thirty, or even forty years of our lives, and are seemingly perfectly indifferent to our fate.

America is another name for opportunities. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine Providence in behalf of the human race.

Are you prepared for a great opportunity?

As the silkworm transmutes the mulberry leaf into satin, so you should transmute your knowledge into practical wisdom.

Beware of that frequently fatal gift, versatility. Many a person misses being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. Universality is the ignis fatuus which has deluded to ruin many a promising mind. In attempting to gain a knowledge of half a hundred subjects it has mastered none.

Boys who are bound out, crowded out, kicked out, usually "turn out," while those who do not have these disadvantages frequently fail to "come out."

Brain-workers cannot do good, effective work in one line many hours a day. When the brain is weary, when it begins to lose its elasticity and freshness, there will be the same lack of tonicity and strength in the brain product.

But what is the best opportunity to him who cannot or will not use it?

Certain personalities are greater than mere physical beauty and more powerful than learning. Charm of personality is a divine gift that sways the strongest characters, and sometimes even controls the destinies of nations.

Character is power, and is the best advertisement in the world.

Don't dally with your purpose.

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.

Don't wait for your opportunity. Make it,-- make it as the shepherd-boy Ferguson made his when he calculated the distances of the stars with a handful of glass beads on a string. Make it as George Stephenson made his when he mastered the rules of mathematics with a bit of chalk on the grimy sides of the coal wagons in the mines. Make it, as Napoleon made his in a hundred "impossible" situations. Make it, as all leaders of men, in war and in peace, have made their chances of success. Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness, but industry makes the commonest chances golden.

Educated rascality is infinitely more of a menace to society than ignorant rascality.

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spectator of a statue, into the very ideal presence whence these works have originated.

Every great man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel.

Every young man should have a hobby to occupy his leisure hours, something useful to which he can turn with delight. It might be in line with his work or otherwise, only his heart must be in it.

Forces of nature plead to be used in the service of man, as lightning for ages tried to attract his attention to the great force of electricity, which would do his drudgery and leave him to develop the God-given powers within him. There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it.

Go to the bottom if you would get to the top. Be master of your calling in all its details. Nothing is small which concerns your business.

Great men have found no royal road to their triumph. It is always the old route, by way of industry and perseverance.

Grit is a permanent, solid quality, which enters into the very structure, the very tissues of the constitution.

How it shortens the road to success to make a wise choice of one's occupation early, to be started on the road of a proper career while young, full of hope, while the animal spirits are high, and enthusiasm is vigorous; to feel that every step we take, that every day's work we do, that every blow we strike helps to broaden, deepen, and enrich life!

How stupid and clumsy is the blinking eagle at perch, but how keen his glance, how steady and true his curves, when turning his powerful wing against the clear blue sky!

If the germ of the seed has to struggle to push its way up through the stones and hard sod, to fight its way up to sunlight and air, and then to wrestle with storm and tempest, with snow and frost, the fiber of its timber will be all the tougher and stronger.

If the highest thing in me will not bring success, surely the lowest, the worst, cannot.

If one chooses wisely, the study, research, and occupation that a hobby confers will broaden character and transform the home.

If a salamander be cut in two, the front part will run forward and the other backward. Such is the progress of him who divides his purpose. Success is jealous of scattered energies.

If you can get a child learning to walk to fix his eyes on any object, he will generally navigate to that point without capsizing, but distract his attention and down he goes.

Innumerable apples had fallen from trees, often hitting heedless men on the head as if to set them thinking, but Newton was the first to realize that they fall to the earth by the same law which holds the planets in their courses and prevents the momentum of all the atoms in the universe from hurling them wildly back to chaos.

It has been well said that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.

It is a well-known truism that has almost been elevated to the dignity of a maxim, that what may be done at any time will be done at no time.

It is said that the wind never blows fair for that sailor who knows not to what port he is bound.

It seems a great hardship, indeed, for a young man with an ambition to do something in the world to be compelled to pay his own way through school and college by hard work. But history shows us that the men who have led in the van of human progress have been, as a rule, self-educated, self-made.

It is victory after victory with the soldier, lesson after lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture with the painter, and mile after mile with the traveler, that secures what all so much desire -- SUCCESS.

Knowledge is power only when it can be made available, practical.

Life pulsates with chances. They may not be dramatic or great, but they are important to him who would get on in the world.

Man is the only great thing in the universe. All the ages have been trying to produce a perfect model. Only one complete man has yet evolved. The best of us are but prophesies of what is to come.

Many a man has dwarfed his manhood, cramped his intellect, crushed his aspiration, blunted his finer sensibilities, in some mean, narrow occupation just because there was money in it.

Many a wasted life dates its ruin from a lost five minutes. "Too late" can be read between the lines on the tombstone of many a man who has failed. A few minutes often makes all the difference between victory and defeat, success and failure.

Nearly every great discovery or invention that has blessed mankind has had to fight its way to recognition, even against the opposition of the most progressive men.

No boy or girl in America to-day who has good health, good morals and good grit need despair of getting a college education unless there are extremely unusual reasons against the undertaking.

No orator has ever electrified an audience while he was thinking of his style or was conscious of his rhetoric, or trying to apply the conventional rules of oratory. It is when the orator's soul is on fire with his theme, and he forgets his audience, forgets everything but his subject, that he really does a great thing.

No singer ever captivated her audience until she forgot herself, until she was lost in her song.

On all sides we see men with small minds, but who are well educated, pushing ahead of those who have greater capabilities, but who are only half educated. A one-talent man, superbly trained, often gets the place when a man with many untrained or half-trained talents loses it. Never was ignorance placed at such a disadvantage as to-day.

One of the greatest boons that can ever come to a human being is to be born on a farm and reared in the country. Self-reliance and grit are oftenest country-bred.

One unwavering aim has ever characterized successful men.

Only thoughts that breathe in words that burn can kindle the spark slumbering in the heart of another.

Only what you can use of your education will benefit you or the world.

Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will never fail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for assistance; open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon which to bestow their gifts; open hands will never lack for noble work to do.

Opposing circumstances create strength. Opposition gives us greater power of resistance. To overcome one barrier gives us greater ability to overcome the next.

Our great lack is want of thoroughness. How seldom you find a young man or woman who is willing to prepare for his life-work! A little education is all they want, a little smattering of books, and then they are ready for business.

Power and constant growth toward a higher life are the great end of human existence. Your calling should be the great school of life, the great man-developer, character-builder, that which should broaden, deepen, and round out into symmetry, harmony, and beauty, all the God-given faculties within you.

Promptness is the mother of confidence and gives credit. It is the best possible proof that our own affairs are well ordered and well conducted, and gives others confidence in our ability. The man who is punctual, as a rule, will keep his word, and may be depended upon.

Punctuality is the soul of business, as brevity is of wit.

Self-consciousness is a foe to greatness in every line of endeavor. No one ever does a really great thing until he feels that he is a part of something greater than himself, until he surrenders to that greater principle.

Stick to the thing and carry it through. Believe you were made for the place you fill, and that no one else can fill it as well. Put forth your whole energies. Be awake, electrify yourself; go forth to the task. Only once learn to carry a thing through in all its completeness and proportion, and you will become a hero. You will think better of yourself; others will think better of you. The world in its very heart admires the stern, determined doer.

Success is the child of two very plain parents -- punctuality and accuracy.

The fact is that there is such a diversity of attractions and distractions, of temptation and amusement in the city, that unless a youth is made of unusual stuff he will yield to the persuasion of the moment and follow the line of least resistance. It is hard for the city-bred youth to resist the multiplicity of allurements and pleasures that bid for his attention, to deny himself and turn a deaf ear to the appeals of his associates and tie himself down to self-improvement while those around him are having a good time.

The habit of precision and accuracy strengthens the mentality, improves the whole character.

The history of the human race is full of the most horrible tragedies caused by carelessness and the inexcusable blunders of those who never formed the habit of accuracy, of thoroughness, of doing things to a finish.

The history of most great men shows that there is a disadvantage in having too many advantages.

The man who has not fought his way up to his own loaf, and does not bear the scar of desperate conflict, does not know the highest meaning of success.

The man who has triumphed over difficulties bears the signs of victory in his face. An air of triumph is seen in every movement.

The man who withholds the giving of himself to the world, does it at his peril, at the cost of mental and moral penury.

The mission of the trained man is to show the world a higher, finer type of manhood.

The occupation of the mind has a great influence upon the health of the body.

The present time is the raw material out of which we make whatever we will. Do not brood over the past, or dream of the future, but seize the instant and get your lesson from the hour. The man is yet unborn who rightly measures and fully realizes the value of an hour.

There are critical moments in every successful life when if the mind hesitate or a nerve flinch all will be lost.

There may not be one chance in a million that you will ever receive unusual aid; but opportunities are often presented which you can improve to good advantage, if you will only act.

There is no excuse for incompetence in this age of opportunity; no excuse for being second-class when it is possible to be first-class, and when first-class is in demand everywhere.

There is no open door to the temple of success. Everyone who enters makes his own door, which closes behind him to all others, not even permitting his own children to pass.

There is no situation in life in which the beneficent influence of a well-assimilated education will not make itself felt.

There is nothing which all mankind venerate and admire so much as simple truth, exempt from artifice, duplicity, and design.

There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has had to fight its way to public recognition in the face of detraction, calumny, and persecution.

The trouble with most of us is that, in our efforts to sell ourselves for selfish ends or for the most dollars, we impoverish our own lives, stifle our better natures.

The vacillating man is ever at the mercy of the opinion of the man who talked with him last. He may see the right, but he drifts toward the wrong. If he decides upon a course he only follows it until somebody opposes it.

The vacillating man is never a prompt man, and without promptness no success is possible. Great opportunities not only come seldom into the most fortunate life, but also are often quickly gone.

The very granite hills, the mountains, the valleys, the brooks, the miracle of the growing crops are every moment registering their mighty potencies in his constitution, putting iron into his blood and stamina into his character, all of which will help to make him a giant when he comes to compete with the city-bred youth.

The very temptation in the city to turn night into day is of itself health-undermining, stamina-dissipating and character-weakening.

The world admires the man who never flinches from unexpected difficulties, who calmly, patiently, and courageously grapples with his fate; who dies, if need be, at his post.

The world makes way for the determined man.

The world wants a man who is educated all over; whose nerves are brought to their acutest sensibility; whose brain is cultured, keen, incisive, broad; whose hands are deft; whose eyes are alert, sensitive, microscopic; whose heart is tender, magnanimous, true.

The worst of a lost hour is not so much in the wasted time as in the wasted power. Idleness rusts the nerves and makes the muscles creak. Work has system, laziness has none.

Thoroughness and reliability, the German's characteristics, are increasing the power of Germany throughout the civilized world.

Thousands of men of great native ability have been lost to the world because they have not had to wrestle with obstacles, and to struggle under difficulties sufficient to stimulate into activity their dormant powers. No effort is too dear which helps us along the line of our proper career.

Time is money. We should not be stingy or mean with it, but we should not throw away an hour any more than we would throw away a dollar-bill. Waste of time means waste of energy, waste of vitality, waste of character in dissipation. It means the waste of opportunities which will never come back. Beware how you kill time, for all your future lives in it.

Timidity, shyness, and self-consciousness belong to the same family.

Timid, shy people are morbidly self-conscious; they think too much about themselves. Their thoughts are always turned inward; they are always analyzing, dissecting themselves, wondering how they appear and what people think of them. If these people could only forget themselves and think of others, they would be surprised to see what freedom, ease, and grace they would gain; what success in life they would achieve.

True salamanders live best in the furnace of persecution.

Very few people recognize the hour when laziness begins to set in.

Vigorous thought must come from a fresh brain. We cannot expect nerve, snap, robustness and vigor, sprightliness and elasticity, in the speech, in the book, or in the essay, from an exhausted, jaded brain.

Wanted, a man of courage who is not a coward in any part of his nature.

Wanted, a man who is broad, who does not take half views of things; a man who mixes common sense with his theories, who does not let a college education spoil him for practical, every-day life; a man who prefers substance to show, and one who regards his good name as a priceless treasure.

Wanted, a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting a living. Wanted, a man who sees self-development, education and culture, discipline and drill, character and manhood, in his occupation.

Wanted, a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say "No," though all the world say "Yes."

Wanted, a man who is symmetrical, and not one-sided in his development, who has not sent all the energies of his being into one narrow specialty and allowed all the other branches of his life to wither and die.

Wanted, a man who, though he is dominated by a mighty purpose, will not permit one great faculty to dwarf, cripple, warp, or mutilate his manhood; who will not allow the over-development of one faculty to stunt or paralyze his other faculties.

Wanted, a man who is well balanced, who is not cursed with some little defect of weakness which cripples his usefulness and neutralizes his powers.

Weak men wait for opportunities, strong men make them.

We do our best while fighting desperately to attain what the heart covets.

We little realize what a large part of our achievement is due to others working through us, to their sharpening our faculties, radiating hope, encouragement, and helpfulness into our lives, and sustaining and inspiring us mentally.

We are now finding that agriculture is as great a science as astronomy, and that ignorant men have been getting an indifferent living from their farms simply because they did not know how to mix brains with the soil.

We are the victors of our opponents. They have developed in us the very power by which we overcome them. Without their opposition we could never have braced and anchored and fortified ourselves, as the oak is braced and anchored for its thousand battles with the tempests. Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs develop us in a similar way.

What a lesson there is in Raphael's brief thirty-seven years to those who plead "no time" as an excuse for wasted lives!

What more glorious than a magnificent manhood, animated with the bounding spirits of overflowing health?

With enthusiasm we may retain the youth of the spirit until the hair is silvered.

With five chances on each hand and one unwavering aim, no boy, however poor, need despair. There is bread and success for every youth under the American flag who has energy and ability to seize his opportunity. It matters not whether the boy is born in a log-cabin or in a mansion; if he is dominated by a resolute purpose and upholds himself, neither men nor demons can keep him down.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.

A will finds a way.

A good system shortens the road to the goal.

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

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.

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

A strong, successful man is not the victim of his environment. He creates favorable conditions. His own inherent force and energy compel things to turn out as he desires.

Be larger than your task.

It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

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.

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