Quotes from Orison Swett Marden

The great majority of men and women who have given civilization a great uplift started poor, and for many dark years saw no hope of accomplishing their ambition; but they kept on working and believing that somehow a way would be opened.

Faith is the best substitute for genius; in fact, it is closely allied to genius.

Fortune always smiles on those who roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the wheel.

Our eyes are so focused upon the future, upon some goal in the beyond, that we do not see the beauties and the glories all about us. Our eyes are not focused for the things near us, but those far away. We get so accustomed to living in our imagination and anticipation that we lose much of our power of enjoying the here and the now. We are living for to-morrow, to-morrow, and yet, When tomorrow comes it still will be to-morrow!

So far as is known, it said, no bird ever tried to build more nests than its neighbor. No fox ever fretted because he had only one hole in which to hide. No squirrel ever died of anxiety lest he should not lay by enough nuts for two winters instead of for one, and no dog ever lost any sleep over the fact that he did not have enough bones laid aside for his declining years.

You will find a stimulating effect in always considering yourself as lucky or fortunate. It is a great thing to form a habit of expecting good from every experience in life. Just think what it means to have everybody think you are lucky and expect that what you undertake will turn out well!

Learn to radiate joy, not stingily, not meanly, but generously. Fling out your gladness without reserve. Shed it in the home, on the street, on the car, in the store, everywhere, as the rose sheds its beauty and gives out its fragrance.

I rave no more 'gainst Time or Fate, For lo, my own shall come to me. Asleep, awake, by night or day, The friends I seek are seeking me. What matter if I stand alone? I wait with joy the coming years; My heart shall reap where it hath sown, What is mine shall know my face. Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high Can keep my own away from me.

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.

No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger, says Beecher. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.

Our thoughts, our faith, our beliefs, our efforts, all materialize, and are objectified about us. Our words become flesh and live with us; our thoughts, our emotions, also become flesh and live with us; they become our environment and surround us.

Most obstacles melt away when we make up our minds to walk through them.

Our dreaming capacity gives us a peep into the glorious realities that await us further on.  Dreams are true while they last, And do not we live in dreams? – TENNYSON.

Men succeed in proportion to the fixity of their vision and the invincibility of their purpose. If you can find out a man's quitting point, the place where he gives up, turns back, you can measure him pretty easily.

Don't be afraid to think too highly of yourself. If the Creator made you and is not ashamed of the job, certainly you should not be. He pronounced His work good, and you should respect it.

The time will come when human drones will be ostracized from society as nobodies, as thieves of honest men's efforts, thieves of the results of honest men's labor. The coming civilization will not tolerate these thieves of society, these lazy vagabonds who do nothing but steal the products of their labor and demoralize society by their vicious example.

woe to him who stops to tie his shoestring?

Growth everywhere neutralizes decay. So long as we keep growing, renewing the mind, constantly reaching out for the new and progressive, the retrograding, disintegrating, aging, deteriorating processes cannot be operative.

Learn to labor and to wait. —Longfellow.

At every turn you propose to take, you will find someone to warn you away, to tell you not to take that road, that it will lead to disaster.

A man should be so much greater than any material failure that can come to him that it would scarcely be mentioned in his biography, and that it would be regarded as a mere incident in his career,—inconvenient, but not very important

Knowledge, then, is one of the secret keys which unlock the hidden mysteries of a successful life.

Charm of personality is a divine gift that sways the strongest characters, and sometimes even controls the destinies of nations. We

Hold any particular thought in the mind persistently until it has formed grooves in the brain-tissue and become dominant in the brain structure, and you have permanently changed the character in that direction. You have only to change your mind to a desired direction, holding it there tenaciously until you have formed a new mental habit. Then you are, in that particular, a new creature.