Quotes from Orison Swett Marden

Life is a great university for the unfolding of the mind, for developing character. In choosing our life work, when we are free to choose, we should remember this, and choose that which will call the biggest man or woman out of us and not that from which we can coin the most dollars.

Should you be so unfortunate as to suppose you are a genius, and that 'things will come to you,' it would be well to undeceive yourself as soon as possible. Make up your mind that industry must be the price of all you obtain, and at once begin to pay down.

Books make it possible for every person born into the world to begin where the previous generation left off.

Necessity has been a priceless spur which has helped men to perform miracles against incredible odds.

The successful men of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose.

Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened.

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.

The moment man cuts himself off from living connection with the human race and its needs, he begins to die from poor circulation.

No man fails who does his best.

The world makes way for the man with an idea.

The influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor.

The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. 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. Even the bee and the ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy.

Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals.

Wanted: a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting a living.

The tonic of success is a marvelous producer as well as stimulant. By the law of mental magnetism one success attracts another, and after we begin to win it is comparatively easy to keep on winning.

Nothing is more foolish, nothing more wicked than to drag the skeletons of the past, the hideous images, the foolish deeds, the unfortunate experiences of yesterday into today's work to mar and spoil it. There are plenty of people who have been failures up to the present moment who could do wonders in the future if they only could forget the past, if they only had the ability to cut it off, to close the door on it forever and start anew.

Every discovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeing things ... Keep your eyes open, your ears open ... Trace difficulties.

Tidak mungkin bagi kita untuk sengaja menyakiti orang lain tanpa menyakiti diri kita sendiri juga.

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.

The most of us make our backs ache carrying useless, foolish burdens. We carry luggage and rubbish that are of no earthly use, but which sap our strength and keep us jaded and tired to no purpose. If we could only learn to hold on to the things worthwhile, and drop the rubbish, — let go the useless, the foolish, the silly, the hamperers, the things that hinder, — we should not only make progress but we should keep happy and harmonious.

Love, like the sun, never sees the dark side of anything.

What we do when defeat stares us in the face is the real touchstone of character. But the very fact that success has time and again proved the means of awakening people to the knowledge of greater ability than they ever before dreamed they possessed, ought to hearten and encourage us to keep on no matter how often we fail. If we brace ourselves and continue to push forward we will ultimately win out. (From Everybody ahead, or getting the most out of life)

Wisdom will not open her doors to those who are not willing to pay the price in self-sacrifice, in hard work. Her jewels are too precious to scatter before the idle, the ambitionless.

Saturate yourself with the ideals, with the convictions which you long to come true. Keep your mind filled with them and they must by the very law of attraction force out their opposites, for like attracts like. If you hold the love thought in your mind the hate thought must go. Love and hate can not live together. Light and darkness can not live together.