Quotes from Orison Swett Marden

There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance, and half the battle is in the conviction that we can do what we undertake.

A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.

Aim at perfection in everything?, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. — Chesterfield.

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.

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

In a word trust that man in nothing. Who has not a conscience in everything. — Laurence Sterne

We don't necessarily get what we work for; it is what we expect that comes to us.

Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears.

A man can have no greater delusion than that he can spend the best years of his life coining all of his energies into dollars, neglecting his home, sacrificing friendships, self-improvement, and everything else that is really worth while, for money, and yet find happiness at the end!

he who sticks to one thing is irresistible.

Why do we allow anticipated joys to blind us to those that are close by

Remember that whatever you dread, fear, you are attracting, because the mind always relates with whatever dominates the thought. That which we think most about we tend to get

When I don't know whether to fight or not, I always fight.

Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears. You may deceive all the people some of the time, said Lincoln, some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time. We cannot deceive ourselves any of the time, and the only way to enjoy our own respect is to deserve it. What would you think of a man who would neglect himself and treat his shadow with the greatest respect?

Nature, when she adds difficulties, adds brains. —Emerson. Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them. —Wendell Phillips. Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties. —Spurgeon. The rugged metal of the mine Must burn before its surface shine. —Byron.

The little difference between what we earn and what we spend is capital.

Dig, dig the foundation deep, young man. Plant firmly the outer wall; Let the props be strong and the roof be high. Build it well, whatever you do; Build it straight and strong and true; Build it clean and high and broad; Build it for the eye of God.

Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idle industrious. Neither do uninterrupted success and prosperity qualify men for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager.

The darker the setting, the brighter the diamond.

If the farmer should make a mistake and sow thistle seed instead of wheat, the soil-doesn't say to him, My friend, you have made a mistake. You have been sowing thistle seed instead of wheat, so we will change the law, so that you may get what you thought you were going to get. No, the soil will always give us a harvest like our sowing. If we sow thistle seed it will be just as faithful in producing thistles as it will in producing wheat or cabbages or potatoes.

The majority of people carry in their minds and in their hearts, grudges, jealousy, envy, antipathies, prejudices, which, although not very pronounced in their expression, are festering within and poisoning the inner life.

No joy for which thy hungering soul has panted, No hope it cherishes through waiting years, But, if thou dost deserve it, shall be granted; For with each passionate wish the blessing nears. The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance, Wrapt in the silence unseen and dumb Essential to thy soul and thy existence, Live worthy of it, call, and it shall come. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

An old sculptor said of his carvings, whose backs were to be out of all possible inspection, "But the gods will see. Every

Men who have done great things, made stepping stones of their failures. The disgrace is not in falling, but in not rising every time you fall.