quotations about success
The greatest happiness of life was to stand at the difficult border between success and failure.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Taiko
Beware the serpent, slyly hid, which stings
The soul with poison of Prosperity.
EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR
"Adversity"
Success never needs an excuse.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
speech, May 15, 1854
For one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
In all things success depends on previous preparation, and without such previous preparation there is sure to be failure.
CONFUCIUS
The Doctrine of the Mean
We all love looking down
All we want is some success
But the chance is never around
It's all part of the process
MORCHEEBA
"Part of the Process"
Success is terrifying. Like happiness, it is often appreciated in retrospect. It's only later that you place it in perspective. Years from now, I'll look back and say, "God, wasn't it wonderful?"
JULIE ANDREWS
This Week, September 18, 1966
There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest ever known among men. They are much more wild than the wildest romances of chivalry and much more dull than the dullest religious tract. Moreover, the romances of chivalry were at least about chivalry; the religious tracts are about religion. But these things are about nothing; they are about what is called Success. On every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books. To begin with, of course, there is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing that is not successful. That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey. Any live man has succeeded in living; any dead man may have succeeded in committing suicide. But, passing over the bad logic and bad philosophy in the phrase, we may take it, as these writers do, in the ordinary sense of success in obtaining money or worldly position. These writers profess to tell the ordinary man how he may succeed in his trade or speculation--how, if he is a builder, he may succeed as a builder; how, if he is a stockbroker, he may succeed as a stockbroker. They profess to show him how, if he is a grocer, he may become a sporting yachtsman; how, if he is a tenth-rate journalist, he may become a peer; and how, if he is a German Jew, he may become an Anglo-Saxon. This is a definite and business-like proposal, and I really think that the people who buy these books (if any people do buy them) have a moral, if not a legal, right to ask for their money back. Nobody would dare to publish a book about electricity which literally told one nothing about electricity; no one would dare to publish an article on botany which showed that the writer did not know which end of a plant grew in the earth. Yet our modern world is full of books about Success and successful people which literally contain no kind of idea, and scarcely any kind of verbal sense.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"The Fallacy of Success", All Things Considered
Every person falls down at some point. Successful people choose to get back up.
DAVE RAMSEY
daily tip, official Dave Ramsey website
There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
Where the Blue Begins
Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Fall
About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure.
TOMMY LASORDA
The Artful Dodger
delicate moment
saw you again
leap year summer
presence drew in
flies of success
squandered about
ritual fashion
leaving no doubt
you were a hit
plain to see
busy boulevard
hidden street
I prayed lightly
weaved my path
raise no question
how I survived
the aftermath
but I see no reason to covet
cause I'm just thinking
it all seems so amusing
failure and success
SACCHARINE TRUST
"Success and Failure"
Remember that your real success takes place inside your mind. It's not facts, nor others' acts, nor events, that matter. Nothing matters in the long run but the temper of your spirit. Keep thinking success; and the more you are rebuffed the harder you must think it.
FRANK CRANE
"Ten Success Hunches", Four Minute Essays
Success is a pile of failure that you are standing on.
DAVE RAMSEY
daily tip, official Dave Ramsey website
Success is a mix of sailing skill, grit, determination and improvisation; having to deal with broken yards, torn sails, capsizes and, in one instance, a rudder being washed away, not to mention the obligatory blisters, sand fly bites and sunburn that come with wild camping on deserted dessert islands.
ANONYMOUS
"Ngalawa Cup: The Nuclear Option", Scuttlebutt Sailing News, July 10, 2017
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there.
IRVING BERLIN
Theatre Arts, February 1958
Confident expectation of success makes us a receiving instrument for all the success thoughts that are vibrating through the ether of the atmosphere, and our mind becomes a powerful magnet to draw success thought.
WALTER MATTHEWS
"Success", Human Life from Many Angles
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failure.
SAMUEL SMILES
Self-Help
There are two unpardonable sins in this world -- success and failure.
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son