quotations about success
There are none so low but they have their triumphs. Small successes suffice for small souls.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Success is never assured, but having some challenges is almost always assured. Preparation to deal with those situations can reduce the hurdles and increase the prospects for success.
MARK KAPLAN
"Dealing with the certainty of change", New Hampshire Union Leader, July 9, 2017
Success and failure are not dealt out like prizes and blanks in a lottery, by chance and indiscriminately; but there is a reason for every success and failure. Indolence, chicanery, waste will cause the one; while industry, honesty, and thrift will insure the other.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
Success makes life easier. It doesn't make living easier.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Q, August, 1992
The secret of success is this: There is no secret of success.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
attributed, Witty Words from Wise Women: Quips, Quotes, and Comebacks
Trees are bowed down with weight of fruit,
Clouds big with rain hang low,
So good men humbly bear success,
Nor overweening grow.
BHARTRHARI
"The Path of Altruism"
There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest ever known among men. They are much more wild than the wildest romances of chivalry and much more dull than the dullest religious tract. Moreover, the romances of chivalry were at least about chivalry; the religious tracts are about religion. But these things are about nothing; they are about what is called Success. On every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books. To begin with, of course, there is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing that is not successful. That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey. Any live man has succeeded in living; any dead man may have succeeded in committing suicide. But, passing over the bad logic and bad philosophy in the phrase, we may take it, as these writers do, in the ordinary sense of success in obtaining money or worldly position. These writers profess to tell the ordinary man how he may succeed in his trade or speculation--how, if he is a builder, he may succeed as a builder; how, if he is a stockbroker, he may succeed as a stockbroker. They profess to show him how, if he is a grocer, he may become a sporting yachtsman; how, if he is a tenth-rate journalist, he may become a peer; and how, if he is a German Jew, he may become an Anglo-Saxon. This is a definite and business-like proposal, and I really think that the people who buy these books (if any people do buy them) have a moral, if not a legal, right to ask for their money back. Nobody would dare to publish a book about electricity which literally told one nothing about electricity; no one would dare to publish an article on botany which showed that the writer did not know which end of a plant grew in the earth. Yet our modern world is full of books about Success and successful people which literally contain no kind of idea, and scarcely any kind of verbal sense.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"The Fallacy of Success", All Things Considered
Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.
ARTHUR ASHE
attributed, Get Motivated!: Daily Psych-Ups
Success is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each one.
BARBRA STREISAND
attributed, Little Giant Encyclopedia of Inspirational Quotes
Success is sweet: the sweeter if long delayed and attained through manifold struggles and defeats.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation
There are two unpardonable sins in this world -- success and failure.
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
Success is a magnet that draws many followers.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Success demands paranoia.
JOSEPH FINDER
Paranoia
Success had ruined many a man.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanac
The success of today may be the disaster of tomorrow and of other days to be. The failure of today may be an everlasting success.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"The Dead", Reactions and Other Essays
Success is a mix of sailing skill, grit, determination and improvisation; having to deal with broken yards, torn sails, capsizes and, in one instance, a rudder being washed away, not to mention the obligatory blisters, sand fly bites and sunburn that come with wild camping on deserted dessert islands.
ANONYMOUS
"Ngalawa Cup: The Nuclear Option", Scuttlebutt Sailing News, July 10, 2017
The thing I remember best about "successful people" I've met is their obvious delight in what they do. And their delight seems to have very little to do with the trappings of worldly success.
FRED ROGERS
You Are Special: Neighborly Wit and Wisdom from Mister Rogers
The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success -- is our national disease.
WILLIAM JAMES
letter to H. G. Wells, September 11, 1906