Quotes About Success

This start-up looks as if it could not fail, but the base rate of success in the industry is extremely low. How do we know this case is different?

The unsurprising idea that luck often contributes to success has surprising consequences when we apply it to the first two days of a high-level golf tournament. To keep things simple, assume that on both days the average score of the competitors was at par 72. We focus on a player who did very well on the first day, closing with a score of 66. What can we

In the standard rational model of economics, people take risks because the odds are favorable—they accept some probability of a costly failure because the probability of success is sufficient.

assign a larger role to talent, stupidity, and intentions than to luck; and focus on a few striking events that happened rather than on the countless events that failed

Amos and I enjoyed the extraordinary good fortune of a shared mind that was superior to our individual minds and of a relationship that made our work fun as well as productive.

Even when they are not sure they will succeed, these bold people think their fate is almost entirely in their own hands. They are surely wrong: the outcome of a start-up depends as much on the achievements of its competitors and on changes in the market as on its own efforts.

luck plays a large role in every story of success;

success = talent + luck great success = a little more talent + a lot of luck

A recurrent theme of this book is that luck plays a large role in every story of success; it is almost always easy to identify a small change in the story that would have turned a remarkable achievement into a mediocre outcome.

Leaders who have been lucky are never punished for having taken too much risk. Instead, they are believed to have had the flair and foresight to anticipate success, and the sensible people who doubted them are seen in hindsight as mediocre, timid, and weak.

The comparison of firms that have been more or less successful is to a significant extent a comparison between firms that have been more or less lucky.

Knowing the importance of luck, you should be particularly suspicious when highly consistent patterns emerge from the comparison of successful and less successful firms. In the presence of randomness, regular patterns can only be mirages.

I smiled and said nothing. But I thought, "Well, I took it away from you this morning. If your success was due mostly to chance, how much credit are you entitled to take for it?

These were my offerings: success = talent + luck great success = a little more talent + a lot of luck

the long-term success of a relationship depends far more on avoiding the negative than on seeking the positive. Gottman estimated that a stable relationship requires that good interactions outnumber bad interactions by at least 5 to 1. Other asymmetries in the social domain are even more striking. We all know that a friendship that may take years to develop can be ruined by a single action.

A few lucky gambles can crown a reckless leader with a halo of prescience and boldness.

It is difficult to imagine people lining up at airport bookstores to buy a book that enthusiastically describes the practices of business leaders who, on average, do somewhat better than chance. Consumers have a hunger for a clear message about the determinants of success and failure in business, and they need stories that offer a sense of understanding, however illusory.

Consumers have a hunger for a clear message about the determinants of success and failure in business, and they need stories that offer a sense of understanding, however illusory.

LET GO, JASON. PAIN GOES AWAY, AND IT HURTS LESS THAN FEAR WHILE IT LASTS. NOTHING DOES LAST, NOT GOOD THINGS OR BAD, NOT SUCCESS OR FAILURE, NOT LIFE ITSELF; AND NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU FAIL, WHILE LIFE REMAINS YOU CAN ALWAYS GIVE YOURSELF ANOTHER CHANCE EVEN IF NO ONE ELSE WILL; CAN ALWAYS CHOOSE TO TRY AGAIN.

Success is always more likely when you are swimming with the current rather than against it.

Give your due diligence to understanding business or you will have no place in it.

To really succeed in whatever is the business of your choice, you have to come to understand and utterly absorb into your being the fundamentally true idea that your activities in your business are virtuous and moral, provided of course that you conduct your business affairs honestly and honorably. Absorb this lesson into your heart and into your soul, and you will have overcome a major hurdle on your road to financial achievement.

The principles that explain why some genes are transmitted more successfully than others also explain why some beliefs are transmitted more successfully than others.

I will go on quietly and slowly, but I will go on firmly, and with a certainty of success.