Orison Swett Marden Quotes (109 Quotes)

A good system shortens the road to the goal.

Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs develop us....

When a man feels throbbing within him, the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, and all of his faculties say 'amen' to what he is doing, and give their unqualified approval to his efforts, this is happiness, this is success.

The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling.

Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us.

If we put the emphasis upon the right things. If we live the life that is worth while, and then fail, we will survive all disasters, we will out-live all misfortune. We should be so well balanced and symmetrical, that nothing which could ever happen could throw us off our center, so that no matter what misfortune should overtake us, there would still be a whole magnificent man or woman left after being stripped of everything else.

The world is sad enough without your woe.

No employer today is independent of those about him. He cannot succeed alone, no matter how great his ability or capital. Business today is more than ever a question of cooperation.

It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind.

Who can estimate the real wealth that inheres in a fine character.... How base and mean money and huge estates look in comparison. All other things fade before it. Its touch is like magic to win friendship, influence, power. Can you afford to chill, to discourage, to crush out of your life this sweet, sensitive plant, which would flower in your nature and give added glory to your life, for the sake of a few dollars, a little questionable fame.

Put the uncommon effort into the common task... make it large by doing it in a great way.

Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark...

It is what we do easily and what we like to do that we do well.

We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere your ideal of what you long to attain the ideal of health, efficiency, success.

To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.

Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will see farther.

Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hall-mark of excellence.

Your outlook upon life, your estimate of yourself, your estimate of your value are largely colored by your environment. Your whole career will be modified, shaped, molded by your surroundings, by the character of the people with whom you come in contact every day.

There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to do our level best right where we are every day of our lives; To use our best judgment, and then to trust the rest to that Power which holds the forces of the universe in his hands.

The greatest trouble with most of us is that our demands upon ourselves are so feeble, the call upon the great within of us so weak and intermittent that it makes no impression upon the creative energies it lacks the force that transmutes desires into realities.

The hand cannot reach higher than does the heart.

There is something greater than wealth, grander even than fame manhood, character, stand for success ... nothing else really does.

Whatever our creed, we feel that no good deed can by any possibility go unrewarded, no evil deed unpunished.

It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that holds the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others.

We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.

It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.

Every great man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel.

Obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Concentrate ... for the greatest achievements are reserved for the man of single aim, in whom no rival powers divide the empire of the soul.

Concentration is the factor that causes the great discrepancy between men and the results they achieve. . . the difference in their power of calling together all the rays of their ability and concentrating on one point.

You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else.

We fail to see that we can control our destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible; make ourselves become whatever we long to be.

The sculptor will chip off all unnecessary material to set free the angel. Nature will chip and pound us remorselessly to bring out our possibilities. She will strip us of wealth, humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, let us down from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thousand ways, if she can develop a little character. Everything must give way to that. Wealth is nothing, position is nothing, fame is nothing, manhood is everything.

You will always have to live with yourself, and it is to your best interest to see that you have good company -- a clean, pure, straight, honest, upright, generous, magnanimous companion.

There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King.

No man fails who does his best.

What a great discrepancy there is between men and the results they achieve It is due to the difference in their power of calling together all the rays of their ability and concentrating them upon one point.

But how shall I get ideas Keep your wits open Observe Study Study but above all, think Think and when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind Act.

Every germ of goodness will at last struggle into bloom and fruitage ... true success follows every right step.

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.

People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks they have never been satisfied to do things just as others so them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence.

Opportunities They are all around us. . . There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it.

Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.

Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.

Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.

Begin where you are work where you are the hour you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success, may be crowded with grand possibilities.

Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes - every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man.

There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.