Orison Swett Marden quotes

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Strength #Strong

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Hope #Powerful #Get Well Soon

Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Motivational #Success #Meaningful

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Dream #Positive Thinking

Most men fail, not through lack of education, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless will.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Determination #Failure #Men

The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Motivation #Champion #Winner

No man is beaten until his hope is annihilated, his confidence gone, As long as a man faces life hopefully, confidently, triumphantly, he is not a failure; he is not beaten until he turns his back on life.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Mistake #Men #Long

No one has a corner on success. It is his who pays the price.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Pay

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Dream #Life And Love

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

#Men #Firsts #Lasts

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Motivational #Success

You must bring every particle of your energy, unanswerable resolution, your best efforts, your persistent industry to your task or the best will not come out of you. You must back up your ambition by your whole nature, by unbounded enthusiasm and a determination to win which knows no failure.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Determination #Ambition #Winning

Our thoughts and imagination are the only real limits to our possibilities.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Real #Imagination #Limits

We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Order #Giving #Generosity

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#World #Woe #Enough

Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Friendship #Happiness #Heart

Unless you have prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you just in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Education #Opportunity #Preparation

The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspiring #Fundraising #Giving

The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Success #Leadership #Business

He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Positive #Thinking

There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Being Happy #Cheer #Sunshine

You will find the whole world will change to you when you change your attitude toward it.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Attitude #World #Change Your Attitude

Power gravitates to the man who knows how.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Men #Power #He Man

There is genius in persistence. It conquers all opposers. It gives confidence. It annihilates obstacles. Everybody believes in a determined man. People know that when he undertakes a thing, the battle is half won, for his rule is to accomplish whatever he sets out to do.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Confidence #Believe #Persistence

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it including the thorns.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Success #Winning #Mind

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Motivational #Responsibility

What keeps so many people back is simply unwillingness to pay the price, to make the exertion, the effort to sacrifice their ease and comfort.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Sacrifice #People

We cannot rise higher than our thought of ourselves.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Self Esteem #Vision #Higher

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.
-- Orison Swett Marden

Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Strong #Opportunity #Men

Obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Challenges #Looks #Obstacles

Put yourself in your customer's place.
-- Orison Swett Marden

Superiority - doing things a little better than anybody else can do them.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Excellence #Littles #Superiority

Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Men #Excellence #Common

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Motivational #Success

There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Respect #Courage #Kings

Self-Control is the very essence of character. To be able to look a man straight in the eye, calmly and deliberately, without the slightest ruffle of temper under extreme provocation, gives a sense of power which nothing else can give. To feel that you are always, not sometimes, master of yourself, gives a dignity and strength to character, buttresses it, supports it on every side, as nothing else can. This is the culmination of thought mastery.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Character #Eye #Men

Whatever our creed, we feel that no good deed can by any possibility go unrewarded, no evil deed unpunished.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Evil #Deeds #Possibility

When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Happiness #Fear #Journey

We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Motivational #Nature #Environmental

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

#Success #Struggle #Achievement

No employer today is independent of those about him. He cannot succeed alone, no matter how great his ability or capital. Business today is more than ever a question of cooperation.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Teamwork #Business #Independent

Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Time #Stuff #World

It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Law #Mind #Desire

There's no grander sight in the world than that of a person fired with a great purpose, dominated by one unwavering aim.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Sight #Purpose #World

We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your ideal of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Life #Long

You will always have to live with yourself, and it is to your best interest to see that you have good company - a clean, pure, straight, honest, upright, generous, magnanimous companion.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Honesty #Good Company #Companion

How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, all nature smiles, the air seems more balmy, the sky clearer, the earth has a brighter green... the flowers are more fragrant... and the sun, moon, and stars all appear more beautiful, and seem to rejoice with us.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Beautiful #Gratitude #Stars

What we do for a living does not matter as much as how we do it.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Work #Matter #Doe

A good system shortens the road to the goal.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Goal #Planning

There is no failure for the man who realizes his power, who never knows when he is beaten; there is no failure for the determined endeavor, the conquerable will. There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persists when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Life #Perseverance

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

#Inspirational #Success #Graduation

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Add #Invisible

We fail to see that we can control our destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible; make ourselves become whatever we long to be.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Destiny #Long #Failing

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Change #Dream #Work

If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Want #Firsts

You know from past experiences that whenever you have been driven to the wall, or thought you were, you have extricated yourself in a way which you never would have dreamed possible had you not been put to the test. The trouble is that in your everyday life you don't go deep enough to tap the divine mind within you.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Wall #Past #Everyday

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Hands #Class #People

The first part of success is 'Get-to-it-iveness'; the second part of success is 'Stick-to-it-iveness'.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Motivational Sales #Sticks #Firsts

It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Garden #Soil #Harvest

Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desire.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Uplifting #Ambition

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Life #Nature #Men

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Life #Character #Careers

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

#Men #Play #Balance

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

#Motivational #Believe #Knowing

Every experience in life, everything with which we have come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting away at our life statue, molding, modifying, shaping it. We are part of all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt or thought has had its hand in molding us, shaping us.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Cutting #Hands #Life Is

Find your purpose and fling your life out to it. Find a way or make one. Try with all your might. Self-made or never made.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Self #Inspire #Trying

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Strong #Successful #Men

To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Success #Honesty #Opportunity

If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Life #Fun

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

#Men #Tests #Lost

One penny may seem to you a very insignificant thing, but it is the small seed from which fortunes spring.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Money #Spring #May

Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Success #Failure #Men

Every child should be taught to expect success
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Children #Taught #Should

The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating mind. Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every newspaper article is an opportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is an opportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity, an opportunity to be polite, an opportunity to be manly, an opportunity to be honest, an opportunity to make friends.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Opportunity #Mind #Clients

It is what we do easily and what we like to do that we do well.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Enjoyment #Wells

Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

No man fails who does his best.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Wrestling #Men #Doe

Put the uncommon effort into the common task... make it large by doing it in a great way.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Effort #Excellence #Way

Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes - every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Nature #Stars #Flower

Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Leadership #Inspirational Life #Greatness

There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to do our level best right where we are every day of our lives; To use our best judgment, and then to trust the rest to that Power which holds the forces of the universe in his hands.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Trust #Hands #Excellence

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Men #Self #Vision

Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them... they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Life #Fear

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Leadership

When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Success #Men #Done

The hopeful man sees success where others see failure, sunshine where others see shadows and storm.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Success #Sunshine #Men

The quality of your work, in the long run, is the deciding factor on how much your services are valued by the world.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Success #Running #Inspiration

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.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Confidence #Money

We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Believe #Journey

Good cheer is a great lubricant; it oils all of life's machinery.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Cheer #Oil #Machinery

We do not know what we can bear until we are put to the test. Many a delicate mother, who thought that she could not survive the death of her children, has lived to bury her husband and the last one of a large family, and in addition to all this has seen her home and last dollar swept away; yet she has had the courage to bear it all and to go on as before. When the need comes, there is a power deep within us that answers the call.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Mother #Children #Husband

There can be no life which does not contain something to be grateful for, and the habit of gratitude is one of the most powerful assets of success and happiness which can be named.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Gratitude #Powerful #Grateful

Self-confidence carries conviction; it makes other people believe in us.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Motivational #Believe #Self Confidence

We cannot separate our lives from time. Why is it that we are so extravagant, so thoughtless, in our waste of time, especially in youth, when we cling so tenaciously to life? You cannot separate a wasted hour from the same duration of your life. If you waste your time, you must waste your life. If you improve your time, you cannot help improving your life.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Time #Duration #Waste

The man who has not learned the secret of taking the drudgery out of his task by flinging his whole soul into it, has not learned the first principles of success or happiness.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Men #Soul #Secret

Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy with you or you will never find it.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Inspirational #Joy #Paradise

Character: the grandest thing in the world.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#Character #World

Make every occasion a great occasion, for you can never tell who may be taking your measure for a higher place.
-- Orison Swett Marden

#May #Higher #Occasions

We lift ourselves by our thought.
-- Orison Swett Marden