quotations about success
Poverty, many can endure with dignity. Success, how few can carry off, even with decency and without baring their innermost infirmities before the public gaze!
ROBERT BONTINE CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM
Success and Other Sketches
Human success is a quotation from overhead.
CHARLES H. PARKHURST
"The Patern in the Mount"
Is it possible to have an endless series of successes without falling on our faces? I suppose it is, but I think it would entail doing the same things over and over again without taking chances, without taking risks or exploring our limits, without finding out what we can and can't do.
ALAN ARKIN
An Improvised Life
Success in business, as in life, is often largely just a matter of luck.
FELIX G. ROHATYN
Dealings: A Political and Financial Life
There was nothing worse ... than a loser who'd made it. It was just part of the way things worked--part of the complexity of life ... that sometimes somebody who absolutely deserved nothing more than to be one of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the dregs of society, lucked out into a position of wealth, power and admiration. At least people who were natural winners knew how to carry themselves in their pomp, whether their ascendancy had come through the luck of being born rich and powerful or the luck of being born ambitious and capable. Losers who'd made it always let the side down.... Their only use ... was as examples to be held up to those who complained about their lack of status or money or control over their lives: look, if this idiot can achieve something, so can anybody, so can you. So stop whining about being exploited and work harder.
IAIN M. BANKS
Surface Detail
Just and noble minds rejoice in other men's success.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
The certainty of succeeding makes the road easy.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.
DAVID G. MYERS
Exploring Psychology
The mighty credit, which is a mantle of cloth of gold and finest silver spun ... by the greatest of the angels of men--Success.
LEW WALLACE
Ben-Hur
The man who succeeds must always in mind or imagination live, move, think, and act as if he had gained that success, or he never will gain it.
PRENTICE MULFORD
attributed, Success: A Book of Ideals, Helps, and Examples
It is a great presumption to ascribe our successes to our own management, and not to esteem ourselves upon any blessing, rather as it is the bounty of heaven, than the acquisition of our own prudence.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, February 5, 1712
Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure.
JAMES ALLEN
As a Man Thinketh
Desperation is the surest road to success.
HARRY SOLOMON
"The Physics of Being Dick", 3rd Rock From the Sun
According to the most common idea among men, he that makes the most money is the most successful. The standard so often adopted to measure or weigh everything by a money value is a false one. Money has its uses. The lack of it is hard to bear. But they are not the highest and best powers that are called forth in the acquisition of money. To amass a fortune is not necessarily the highest success. To miss a fortune is not of necessity a dismal failure. Poverty and scanty means are in no way or sense desirable, but we would make very emphatic and press upon the attention of youth everywhere that man's success or happiness is not measured by his bank account.
HENRY F. KLETZING & ELMER L. KLETZING
Traits of Character Illustrated in Bible Light
If we can once believe that success is possible, success becomes possible.
FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP
Success: A Course in Moral Instruction
Success demands singleness of purpose.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership
I do all this alone, everything I achieve, I achieve alone, because it's my head I'm locked into, and I share this space with nobody but myself.
ALEX GARLAND
The Coma
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Winston Churchill's Great Quotation Book: From Alamein to Zest for Life
People who think achieving success is a linear A-to-Z process, a straight shot to the top, simply aren't in touch with reality. There are very few bona fide overnight success stories. It just doesn't work that way. Success appears to happen overnight because we all see stories in newspapers and on TV about previously unknown people who have suddenly become famous. But consider a sequoia tree that has been growing for several hundred years. Just because a television crew one day decides to do a story about that tree doesn't mean it didn't exist before.
DONALD TRUMP
How to Get Rich
If you would revenge yourself on those who have slighted you, BE SUCCESSFUL; it is a bitter satire on their want of judgment; to show that you can do without them, a galling wound to the self-love of proud, inflated people; but you must reckon on their hatred, as they will never forgive you.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos