This is a compilation of thoughts and quotes that I have found or written recently, as well as many that I've collected throughout the years. Most thoughts are posted randomly, as I feel inspired. A listing of quotes can be found alphabetically (check the 2008 and 2009 archives listing), or by source.

Feel free to suggest additions!


“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” – Proverbs 23:7

Monday, January 5, 2009

Success Quotes

1. The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions. - James A. Garfield

2. Action is the foundational key to all success. - Tony Robbins

3. It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. - Theodore Roosevelt

4. True success is saying to yourself ‘Well Done’ without needing the approval of others. – Unknown

5. Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits. - Thomas Edison

6. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. - Conrad Hilton

7. I try to do the right thing at the right time. They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and losing. - Kareem Abdul-Jabar

8. The big shots are only the little shots who keep shooting. - Christopher Morley

9. Success is due less to ability than to zeal. - Charles Buxton

10. Triumph is just “umph” added to “try”. – Unknown

11. Winners never quit, quitters never win. - Unknown

12. Success is a journey, not a destination. - Ben Sweetland

13. Inches make a champion. - Vince Lombardi

14. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. - Beverly Sills

15. You must believe to achieve. - Unknown

16. You can’t set the course for where you are going until you know where you are. - Unknown

17. The distance to success is measured by your own drive. - Unknown

18. Great successes are built on taking your negatives and turning them around. - Sumner Redstone

19. Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius. - An Wang

20. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. - Gen. George Patton

21. There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. We all have a choice. You can decide which type of person you want to be. I have always chosen to be in the first group. - Mary Kay Ash

22. Self-assurance is two-thirds of success. - Gaelic Proverb

23. You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself. - Napoleon Hill

24. Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. - Jonathan Kozol

25. You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? - Steven Wright

26. We must recoil a little, to the end we may leap the better. - English Proverb

27. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing. - Abraham Lincoln

28. All success comes from a combination of implementation and knowledge. Knowledge alone is meaningless without action. - Brian Koslow

29. We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

30. It is wise to keep in mind that no success or failure is necessarily final. – Unknown

31. Well done is better than well said. - Benjamin Franklin

32. You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. - Wayne Gretzky

33. The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary. - Thomas A. Edison

34. The secret for success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. - Benjamin Disraeli

35. Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. - William Feather

36. Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed. - Charles de Montesquieu

37. To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world ; that I am able to change it in positive ways. - Maxine Hong Kingston

38. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill

39. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

40. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. - Henry David Thoreau

41. Success in life is a matter not so much of talent and opportunity as of concentration and perseverance. - C.W. Wendte

42. Ask yourself the secret of your success. Listen to your answer, and practice it. - Richard Bach

43. Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time. - Arnold Glasgow

44. Success is a journey, not a destiny. It should be enjoyed through the entire trip, not endured until the final reward. - Art Linkletter

45. He who would leap high must take a long run. – Unknown

46. It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of the voyage. - Henry Ward Beecher

47. Yesterday’s hits won’t win today’s ball game. - Unknown

48. Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius

49. To be a winner, all you need to give is all you have. – Unknown

50. Sometimes success is just a matter of hanging on. – Unknown

51. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

52. Hit the ball over the fence and you can take your time going around the bases. - John W. Roper

53. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

54. Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to. - Henry Van Dyke

55. I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour beforehand. - Lord Nelson

56. Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. - Albert Einstein

57. We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough. - Helen Keller

58. But chiefly, the mold of a man’s fortune is in his own hands. - Francis Bacon

59. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. - Samuel Johnson

60. The secret of success is constancy of purpose. - Benjamin Disraeli

61. The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed. - Nelson Boswell

62. Any definition of success or of a successful life must include service to others. - George Bush, Sr.

63. The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed. - Lloyd Jones

64. Your chances of success are directly proportional to the degree of pleasure you derive from what you do. - Michael Korda

65. Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get. – Unknown

66. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. – Dalai Lama

67. The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. - Theodore Roosevelt

68. The ideal never comes. Today is ideal for him who would make it so. - Horatio W. Dresser

69. You go back to the gym and you just do it again and again until you get it right. - Arnold Schwarzenegger

70. Sometimes success is due less to ability than to zeal. - Charles Buxton

71. Never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed. - Sydney Smith

72. The difference between a successful person and others is not the lack of strength, not the lack of knowledge, but rather in the lack of will. - Unknown

73. To GET what we've never had, WE must DO what we've have NEVER done! - Motivation in a Minute

74. The most successful people are those who are good at 'Plan B'. - James Yorke

75. The people who succeed in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw

76. What is success: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children. - R W Emerson

77. Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success! - Herman Cain

78. He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much. - Bessie Anderson Stanley

79. Instead of thinking about where you are, think about where you want to be. It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success. - Diana Rankin

80. The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. - Theodore Roosevelt

81. Success is achieved and maintained by those who try, and keep trying, for there is nothing to lose by trying and a great deal to gain if successful. By all means TRY! Do it NOW!!! - W. Clement Stone

82. If at first you don't succeed; you are running about average. - M. H. Alderson

83. Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats. - Amos Bronson Alcott

84. Success: We try and try and try and try and try and then we get it right. - Walt Disney

85. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. - Thomas A. Edison

86. In achieving success, backbone is more important than wishbone. - Frank Tyger

87. If at first you don't succeed try hard work. - William Feather

88. Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture…. Do not build up obstacles in your imagination. -Norman Vincent Peale

89. There are no secrets to success: Don’t waste time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work, and persistence. - Colin Powell

90. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles that one has overcome while trying to succeed. - Booker T. Washington

91. I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed. And the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep trying! - Tom Hopkins

92. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit. - Conrad Hilton

93. A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. - David Brinkley

94. There is no guarantee of success in anything you want to accomplish. In fact if you seek the guarantee of success, you will never succeed! If you're not willing to take risks or to fail, you cannot succeed. - Benjamin Netanyahu

95. Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. - Reggie Leach

96. The largest barrier to success is removing the mattress from one's back in the morning." - Unknown

97. Some people succeed because they are destined to, but most people succeed because they are determined to. - Unknown

98. Success is not counted by how high you have climbed but by how many people you brought with you. - Will Rose

99. I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough. - Noah in "The Notebook"

100. The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity. - Ayn Rand

101. If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. - John D. Rockefeller

102. Success is not the place one arrives, but rather the spirit with which one undertakes and continues the journey. - Alex Noble

103. Think success, visualize success, and you will set in motion the power force of the realizable wish. - Norman Vincent Peale

104. Success never comes to look for you while you wait around. You've got to get up and work at making your dreams come true. - Poh Yu Khing

105. Success comes from having dreams that are bigger than your fears. - Terry Litwiller

106. Success lies in doing not what others consider to be great but what you consider to be right. - John Gray

107. The elevator to success is out of order. You'll have to use the stairs... one step at a time. - Joe Girard

108. Success isn't magic or hocus-pocus -- its simply learning how to focus. - Jack Canfield

109. Success is living up to your potential. That's all. Wake up with a smile and go after life. Live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it. - Joe Kapp

110. Take heed: you do not find what you do not seek. - English Proverb

111. There is no point at which you can say 'Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap. - Carrie Fisher

112. Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough. - Unknown

113. You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure. -Zig Ziglar

114. Successful people start out in life with the same disadvantages as the rest of us. They just find ways to turn their disadvantages into assets. - Sidney A. Friedman

115. Success comes before work only in the dictionary. - Unknown

116. You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need. - Vernon Howard

117. I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. - Bill Cosby

118. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. - Elbert Hubbard

119. The world has the habit of making room for the man whose words and actions show that he knows where he is going. - Napoleon Hill

120. Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction. - Al Bernstein

121. It's no use saying, "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. - Winston Churchill

122. Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. - George Bernard Shaw

123. Success is 99 percent failure. - Soichiro Honda

124. Never mind what others do; do better than yourself, beat your own record each and everyday, and you are a success. - William Boetcker

125. Success is not a doorway, it's a staircase. - Dottie Walters

126. The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way. - Robert Kiyosaki

127. So celebrate what you've accomplished, but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed. - Mia Hamm

128. Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence. The extra energy required to make another effort or try another approach is the secret of winning. - Denis Waitley

129. The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. - Mark Caine

130. Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting. - Napoleon Hill

131. What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team. - Benjamin F. Fairless

132. I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got. - Walter Cronkite

133. Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. - Helen Keller

134. Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful. - Mark Victor Hansen

135. Success is achieved and maintained by those who try, and keep trying, for there is nothing to lose by trying and a great deal to gain if successful. By all means TRY! Do it NOW!!!" - W. Clement Stone

136. You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else. - Orison Swett Marden

137. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill

138. The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it. - Chinese Proverb

139. We must never be afraid to go too far, for success lies just beyond. - Marcel Proust 

140. You can really have everything you want, if you go after it, but you will have to want it. The desire for success must be so strong within you that it is the very breath of your life — your first thought when you awaken in the morning, your last thought when you go to bed at night. - Charles E. Popplestone

141. The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

142. Enjoy the successes that you have, and don’t be too hard on yourself when you don’t do well. Too many times we beat up on ourselves. Just relax and enjoy it. - Patty Sheehan

143. The Law of Win/Win says, “Let’s not do it your way or my way; let’s do it the best way. - Greg Anderson

144. Successful people are dreamers who have found a dream too exciting, too important, to remain in the realm of fantasy. Day by day, hour by hour, they toil in the service of their dream until they can see it with their eyes and touch it with their hands. - Earl Nightingale

145. We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just on the other side of failure. - Leo F. Buscaqlia

146. Are the things around you helping you toward success, or are they holding you back? - W. Clement Stone

147. I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. - Og Mandino

148. All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success. - Dorothea Brande

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