Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Success

"Six essential qualities that are the key to success: sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity." - William Menninger, fully William Claire Menninger

"The most vital test of a man’s character is not how he behaves after success, but how he sustains defeat." - Raymond Moley, fully Raymond Charles Moley

"I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour beforehand." - Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson

"Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work." - Beatrix Potter

"Failure is not our only punishment for laziness: there is also the success of others." - Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

"Important rules to watch in living. Keep life simple. Avoid watching for the knock in your motor. Learn to like work. Have a good hobby. Learn to be satisfied. Like people, say cheerful pleasant things. Turn the defeat of adversity into victory. Met your problems with decision. Make the present moment a success. Always be planning something. Say “nuts” to irritations." - John A. Schindler

"Believe Big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this, too! Big ideas and big plans are often easier – certainly no more difficult – than small ideas and small plans." - David J. Schwartz, fully David Joseph Schwartz

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." - Albert Schweitzer

"He who would take good care of his health should be sparing in his tastes, banish his worries, temper his desires, restrain his emotions, take good care of his vital force, spare his words, regard lightly success and failure, ignore sorrows and difficulties, drive away foolish ambitions, avoid great likes and dislikes, calm his vision and his hearing, and be faithful in his internal regimen. How can one have sickness if he does not tire his spirits and worry his soul? Therefore he would nourish his nature should eat only when he is hungry and not fill himself with food, and he should drink only when he is thirsty and not fill himself with too much drink. He should eat little and between long intervals, and not too much and not too constantly. He should aim at being a little hungry when well-filled, and being a little well-filled when hungry. Being well-filled hurts the lungs and being hungry hurts the flow of vital energy." - Ssemiao NULL

"It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second." -

"It is a tragic paradox that the very qualities that have led to a person's extra-ordinary capacity for success are also those most likely to destroy them." - Anthony Storr

"Success is a journey… not a destination." - Ben Sweetland

"It is important to acknowledge a mistake instantly, correct it, and learn from it. That literally turns a failure into a success. Success is on the far side of failure." - Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.

"Success... it's what you do with what you've got." -

"I have leaned that success is measured not so much by the position one has achieved in life as by the obstacles he has overcome." -

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." -

"All instruction, all criticism, every reduction in choice, every manifestation of hierarchy, every act of secrecy subtly lowers people’s self-belief. Coaching, trust, openness, respect, authentic praise, freedom of choice and, of course, success raise it." - John Whitmore, fully Sir John Whitmore

"In today's rapidly changing world it's not our know-how, it's our learn-how, that ensures our continued success in business and in life." - Larry Wilson

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melodie Beattie

"We believe that humanity stands at the threshold of its next great leap. However, our success in making this transition depends on our willingness to develop a greater vision and a clearer sense of responsibility for one another. Understanding and articulating the nature and dynamics of consciousness is key to achieving this new vision." - Barbara Fields Bernstein

"Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted." - David Bly

"When you are fearful or frantic, you literally immobilize yourself from your greatest potential, not to mention enjoyment. Any success you do have is despite your fear, not because of it." - Richard Carlson

"Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better." - John Carmack, fully John D. Carmack II

"You never achieve real success unless you like what you are doing." -

"I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite." -

"Companies that enjoy enduring success have core values and a core purpose that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices endlessly adapt to a changing world." - James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras

"Success doesn't come to you, you go to it." - Marva Collins, born Marva Delores Nettles

"Success means living the life of the heart." - Francis Ford Coppola

"The secret of success is constancy to purpose." -

"Enjoy everything that happens in your life, but never make your happiness or success dependent on an attachment to any person, place, or thing." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do." -

"The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus and apply your mental and physical energies to the problem at hand - without growing weary. Because such thinking is often difficult, there seems to be no limit to which some people will go to avoid the effort and labor that is associated with it." - Thomas Edison, fully Thomas Alva Edison

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison, fully Thomas Alva Edison

"One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community." - Albert Einstein

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." - Albert Einstein

"The trite objects of human efforts--possessions, outward success, luxury--have always seemed to me contemptible." - Albert Einstein

"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." - Albert Einstein

"All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own terms." -

"If there is any secret to success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from his angle as well as from your own." - Henry Ford

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." - Bill Gates, fully William Henry "Bill"Gates III

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

"Nature gave men two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most." - George Ross Kirkpatrick

"The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand." - Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi

"There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new." -

"No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!" - Og Mandino

"Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future." - Og Mandino

"Society is joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner's success as a means for the attainment of his own." -

"The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say," -

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work learning from failure." - Colin Powell, fully Colin Luther Powell

"I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature." - John D. Rockefeller, fully John Davidson Rockefeller I