Quotes About Success

Lurking behind every chance to be made whole by fame is the axman of further dismemberment. —Leo Braudy, The Frenzy of Renown

Bound for Glory

In the long run, early failure is probably just as great a generator of freedom as early success.

Accel's culture of training and trusting young investors seemed to hold the secret of success.

success had bred confidence; confidence had blurred into complacency; complacency had caused human beings to behave awfully.

Tom Perkins's dictums: you succeed in venture capital by backing the right deals, not by haggling over valuations.

I liked to watch the real salesmen-- the old-time travelers. A lot could be learned from those guys. Those fellas had plenty of charm. They used to say that sincerity sells-- and if you can fake that, you've got it made.

Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt

An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It's enough.

If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either. Part of leadership (a big part of it, actually) is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize that you're going to get there one way or another...so they follow.

The secret of being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal. The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations

It's okay. Let your ego push you to be the initiator. But tell your ego that the best way to get something shipped is to let other people take the credit. The real win for you (and your ego) is seeing something get shipped, not in getting the credit when it does.

The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.

Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-de-Sacs to focus your resources

The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.

If the only side effect of the criticism is that you will feel bad about the criticism, then you have to compare that bad feeling with the benefits you'll get from actually doing something worth doing. Being remarkable is exciting, fun, profitable, and great for your career. Feeling bad wears off.

You become a winner because you're good at losing.

Crash diets don't work. They don't work for losing weight, they don't work for making sales quota and they don't work for getting and keeping a job. The reason they don't work has nothing to do with what's on the list of things to be done (or consumed). No, the reason they don't work is that they don't change habits, and habits are where our lives and careers and bodies are made.

The linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds. I can't tell you how to do this; I think the answer is different for everyone. What I can tell you is that in today's economy, doing it is a prerequisite for success.

But what if I fail? You will. The answer to the what if question is, you will. A better question might be, after I fail, what then? Well, if you've chosen well, after you fail you will be one step closer to succeeding, you will be wiser and stronger and you almost certainly will be more respected by all of those that are afraid to try.

If you're brilliant and undiscovered and underappreciated (in whatever field you choose), then you're being too generous about your definition of brilliant.

Just about everything you learned in school about life is wrong, but the wrongest thing might very well be this: Being well rounded is the secret to success.