Quotes from Orison Swett Marden

He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others.

Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us.

I wish I could fill every young man who reads these pages with an utter dread and horror of poverty. I wish I could make you so feel its shame, its constraint, its bitterness that you would make vows against it.

Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is out of the question.

Economize in other things if you must, wear threadbare clothes if necessary, but never cheat your body or brain by the quality and quantity of your food. Poor, cheap food which produces low vitality and inferior brain force is the worst kind of economy.

Do not give up your dream because it is apparently not being realized, because you cannot see it coming true. Cling to your vision with all the tenacity you can muster. Keep it bright; do not let the bread-and-butter side of life cloud your ideal or dim it.

Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.

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

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.

Nearly all the great improvements, discoveries, inventions, and achievements which have elevated and blessed humanity have been the triumphs of enthusiasm.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

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

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

Live and let live is not enough; live and help live is not too much.

Every man must play the part of his ambition. If you are trying to be a successful man, you must play the part.

A will finds a way.

There is wonderful meaning in the common every-day happenings, the little things that come up in the daily routine, which most of us lose sight of, and that is, the opportunity they give for character building, for mental training, for the object of all of life's endeavor — man-building and woman-building. Your name and face may never appear in the newspapers or magazines, but every day you have an opportunity to live a beautiful life, a helpful life.

Every man ultimately falls into the company with which he affiliates. And he is the strongest who draws men to himself, who creates the company; and this is through having a positive quality - courage and physical prowess.

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.

Most men fail, not through lack of education or agreeable personal qualities, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless will.

It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master's fame.

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.

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

More men are ruined by underestimating the value of money than by overestimating it. Let us, then, abandon the affectation of despising money, and frankly own its value.