SUCCESS
Success is living in such a way that you are using what God has given you—your intellect, abilities, and energy—to reach the purpose that he intends for your life.
—Kathi Hudson
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
—Theodore Roosevelt
The average man has five senses: touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. The successful man has two more: horse and common.
If you’re successful, don’t crow. If you’re defeated, don’t croak.
—Samuel Chadwick
The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.
Behind every successful man there’s a woman who’s surprised.
The success of tomorrow depends on the work of today.
Don’t aim for success. Just do what you love and believe, and it will come naturally.
—David Frost
If you can meet success and failure and treat them both as imposters, then you are a balanced man, my son.
—Rudyard Kipling
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, nor a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
If people are happy in their work—exerting themselves to the full extent of their limitations and capabilities and enjoying it—they’re successful.
There is a four-word formula for success that applies equally well to organizations and individuals—make yourself more useful.
The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.
—John D. Rockefeller Jr.
I would rather fail in the cause that someday will triumph than triumph in a cause that will someday fail.
—Woodrow Wilson
There are no victories at bargain prices.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower
Success depends on the proper functioning of the glands, especially the sweat glands.
If at first you don’t succeed, you’re probably not related to the boss.
The success of a great person is doing what others will not do.
Success is for those energetic enough to work for it, hopeful enough to look for it, patient enough to wait for it, brave enough to seize it, and strong enough to hold it.
One of the biggest troubles with success is that its recipe is about the same as that for a nervous breakdown.
John Kenneth Galbraith in Economics, Peace and Laughter discussed Eisenhower’s success as a leader: “His rule was to keep one eye on the Germans, one eye on his generals, and both ears bent toward Washington.”
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
—Somerset Maugham
A success without a struggle challenges nobody.
—Homer Dowdy
Success in life is a matter not so much of talent as of concentration and perseverance.
—C. W. Wendte
Most people who succeed in the face of seemingly impossible conditions are people who simply don’t know how to quit.
—Robert H. Schuller
If at first you do succeed, try something harder.
There’s just one discouraging thing about the rules of success: They won’t work unless you do!
The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give others.
If at first you don’t succeed, so much for skydiving.
Success is measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.
—Booker T. Washington
To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.
—Henry John Heinz
Science says that success is relative. The more success … the more relatives.
Someone asked the French writer Jean Costeau if he believed in luck. “Certainly,” he said, “How else do you explain the success of those you don’t like?”
Success is not a matter of pure luck. It is mainly a matter of, first, work; second, work; third, work—with, of course, a plentiful mixture of brains, foresight, and imagination.
—B. C. Forbes
Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.
—David Bly
The Lord gave us two ends—one to sit on and the other to think on. Success depends on which one we use the most.
—Ann Landers
Behind every successful man is an exhausted woman.
People rarely succeed at anything unless they have fun doing it.
A successful person is one who went ahead and did the thing the rest of us never quite got around to.
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for and you will succeed.
—Sydney Smith
Success consists not of getting but of doing.
There is no success without honor; no happiness without a clear conscience; no use in living at all if only for one’s self.
—Robert Waters
The man who gets ahead is the one who does more than is necessary—and keeps on doing it.
For everyone who can handle prosperity there are one hundred who can handle adversity.
—Thomas Carlyle
Success cannot evolve without the element of failure present. It is not failure which shapes lives but what is done about failure.
—F. C. Ellenburg
Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.
Happiness comes when you find out what you like to do better than anything else and do it so well that people will come to you and pay you to do it.
—Samuel Graflin
The road to success runs uphill, so don’t expect to break any speed records.
Success equals effort plus vision.
You can fear yourself to failure, or you can fire yourself to success.
Many successful people today were failures yesterday, who never gave up.
Success comes to those who have the character to continue when all seems lost.
A successful man is one who lets God control his mind, his body, and his pocketbook.
Hard work is the easiest bridge to cross over to success.
If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own.
—Henry Ford
The following definition of success was written in 1904 by Bessie Anderson Stanley from Lincoln, Kansas. She was paid $250 for this prize-winning essay. “He has achieved success who lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche, and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty, or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory was a benediction.”
—Ann Landers
Toward the end of his long and productive life a wise man was once asked what advice he had for young men just starting out on life’s journey. This was his answer:
Belong to something bigger than yourself.
Work with others toward a common goal.
Do your part.
Take pride in doing your job well.
Work hard to make your ideas take shape in reality.
Help build something of lasting value.
Some ingredients of success: to be able to carry money without spending it; to be able to bear an injustice without retaliating; to be able to keep on the job until it is finished; to be able to do one’s duty even when one is not being watched; to be able to accept criticism without letting it whip you.
—Bits & Pieces
Marie Ray, a psychiatrist, says that most great people become great because of their struggles with some disability or because of responsibilities too great for their own powers. “No one succeeds without a handicap,” she said. “No one succeeds in spite of a handicap. When anyone succeeds, it’s because of a handicap.”
Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest or boast of it when built? All good work is essentially done that way—without hesitation, without difficulty, without boasting.
—John Ruskin
When the late Edward Cole was president of General Motors he was asked, “What makes you different from other men—why have you succeeded over thousands of others to the top job at G.M.?” He thought for a moment and replied, “I love problems!”
—Ted Engstrom
At a dinner party, a woman said to Lord Northcliffe, “It is really quite surprising—Thackeray awoke one morning and found himself famous!” “When that morning dawned,” Lord Northcliffe answered, “Thackeray had been writing eight hours a day for fifteen years! No, madam, the man who wakes up and finds himself famous hasn’t been asleep!”
Industrial psychologists, seeking the reason why some people move up faster than others, found that the supervision of most workers depends upon the amount of supervision they require. People who see needs and supply them without being told or ordered are the ones who succeed.
—Bits & Pieces
After actor/director Michael Douglas had been in five blockbuster films, his father, actor Kirk Douglas, wrote him a note. It said, “Michael, I’m more proud of how you handle success than I am of your success.”
—Bits & Pieces
The Winner—is always part of the answer;
The Loser—is always part of the problem;
The Winner—says, “Let me do it for you”;
The Loser—says “That’s not my job”;
The Winner—sees an answer for every problem;
The Loser—sees a problem for every answer;
The Winner—sees a green near every sand trap;
The Loser—sees two or three sand traps near every green;
The Winner—says “It may be difficult but it’s possible”;
The Loser—says, “It may be possible but it’s too difficult.”
I believe that a human being can do a lot himself to shape his life. For me, the most important thing is to work hard when I work and acquire all possible knowledge in my line of work … and then learn how to relax inbetween.
—Lauritz Melchior
Men give me some credit for genius. All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject at hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the efforts that I make are what people are pleased to call the fruits of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought!
—Alexander Hamilton
Actress Helen Hayes said her mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. Her mother advised her that “achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that’s nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.”
The Ladder of Success
0% — I won’t.
10% — I can’t.
20% — I don’t know how.
30% — I wish I could.
40% — I could.
50% — I think I might.
60% — I might.
70% — I think I can.
80% — I can.
90% — I will.
100% — I did.
Some of the world’s most successful financiers met in 1923 at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago.
Present were the president of the largest independent steel company, the president of the largest utility company, the greatest wheat speculator, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, a member of the cabinet of the President of the United States, the greatest “bear” on Wall Street, the president of the Bank of International Settlements, and the head of the world’s greatest monopoly. These eight men together controlled more wealth than the United States Treasury.
Success stories of these men had been featured in magazines and books for many years. Charles Schwab, president of the steel company, lived the last years of his life on borrowed money and died broke. Arthur Cutten, the greatest speculator, died abroad, insolvent. Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange, served a term in the Sing Sing Prison. Albert Fall, member of the President’s Cabinet, was pardoned from prison to die at home. Jessie Livermore, the greatest “bear” on Wall Street, Leon Fraser, president of the Bank of International Settlements, and Ivan Krueger, head of the world’s largest monopoly, all committed suicide. Seven of the eight “successful” men ended their lives in tragedy and sorrow.
By his mid-thirties, Winston Churchill was by far the most successful politician of his age in Britain. His career had been like a brilliant meteor blazing across the sky. The son of a notorious politician, he had achieved fame as a reporter and author whose chief subject matter was his own military adventures. Elected to Parliament at the tender age of twenty-five, he entered the Cabinet at thirty-one, and at the outbreak of World War I, was Lord of the Admiralty and part of the War Cabinet. Intelligent, hardworking, eloquent, single-minded, ambitious—the world lay at his feet. But Churchill’s world revolved around him as the sun. He was more interested in himself and his own ideas than in anything else, and his peers were reluctant to trust him.
Then in 1915, his world collapsed. A military expedition at Gallipoli for which he was held responsible (critics still debate the validity of the charge) turned into a bloody debacle. He was forced to resign from the Cabinet, and his long years in the political wilderness, with intermittent respites, began. One biography gives this period of his life a fascinating title, “The Rise to Failure.”
In the crucible of failure, Churchill forged some new qualities which became instrumental in his success as the great Allied leader during World War II. But until he refocused his life, he was a brilliant failure. Achievement in itself can never be the mark of excellence or greatness.
—Gary Inrig