Quotes About Success

If the phenotypic change in the artefact had an influence on the success of replication of the new gene, natural selection would act, positively or negatively, to change the probability of similar artefacts existing in the future.

It is, of course, true that 'Memes are utterly dependent upon genes, but genes can exist and change quite independently of memes' (Bonner 1980). But this does not mean that the ultimate criterion for success in meme selection is gene survival.

Selection favours those genes which succeed in the presence of other genes, which in turn succeed in the presence of them.

even with selfish genes at the helm, nice guys can finish first.

His fame seemed to him a failure of perception on the part of others.

He understood that he shared certain features, habits and history with the war hero. But he was not him. He'd just had more success at living than at dying

I thought that the difference between a successful life and an unsuccessful one, between me at that moment and all the people who owned the cars that were nosed-in to their proper places in the lot, maybe between me and that woman out in the trailers by the gold mine, was how well you were able to put things like this out of your mind and not be bothered by them, and maybe too, by how many troubles like this one you had to face in a lifetime.

My one redeeming strength of character may be that I am good when the chips are down. With success I am worse.

Worldly wisdom teaches that is it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.

Vicarious learning from the experiences of others saves making errors yourself, but I regard the study of successes as being basically more important than the study of failures. There are so many ways of being wrong and so few of being right, studying successes is more efficient.

is a thin line between having enough self-confidence and being overconfident. I suppose the difference is whether you succeed or fail; when you win you are strong-willed, and when you lose you are stubborn!

In closing I want to remind you yet again of Pasteur's remark, "Luck favors the prepared mind." Yes, it is a matter of luck just what you do; it is much less luck you will do something if you prepare yourself to succeed. "Creativity" is just another name for the great successes which make a difference in history.

The young intellectual in the United States today very often feels, almost from the outset of his career, the distractions and pressures attendant upon success, the consequences of a new state of affairs in our cultural life, which is encouraging but also exasperating

There's two kinds of people in this world, there's winners and there's losers. Okay, you know what the difference is? Winners don't give up.--Little Miss Sunshine

Some, indeed, referred to Bismarck's creation as the 'Second Reich'. The use of the word implied, too, that where the First Reich had failed, in the face of French aggression, the Second had succeeded.

Cognitive sorting continues from the time that students enter college to the time they get a degree

because economic success in life depends in part on the talents measured by IQ tests, and because social standing depends in part on economic success, it follows that social standing is bound to be based to some extent on inherited differences.

The proportion of CEOs who came from wealthy families had dropped from almost half in 1900 and a third in 1950 to 5.5 percent by 1976.23 The CEO of 1976 was still disproportionately likely to be Episcopalian but much less so than in 1900—and by 1976 he was also disproportionately likely to be Jewish, unheard of in 1920 or earlier. In short, social and economic background was no longer nearly as important in 1976 as in the first half of the century. Educational

But school is in itself, more immediately and directly than any other institution, the place where people of high cognitive ability excel and people of low cognitive ability fail.

People envy me, people hate me. It is the price of success." This was news to me. People hate me on a dozen different worlds, and I've never considered myself a successful man.

Fame will come to some. Honor will visit all who work.

Fame is a spiritual drug. It is often a by-product of our artistic work, but like nuclear waste, it can be a very dangerous by-product.

Fame is not the same as success, and in our true souls we know that.

success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.