Top 100 Orison Swett Marden Quotes
#1. Ambition is the incentive that makes purpose GREAT and ACHIEVEMENT greater!
Orison Swett Marden
#3. Every man must play the part of his ambition. If you are trying to be a successful man, you must play the part.
Orison Swett Marden
#4. It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master's fame.
Orison Swett Marden
#5. The wearer of smiles and the bearer of a kindly disposition needs no introduction, but is welcome anywhere.
Orison Swett Marden
#6. Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.
Orison Swett Marden
#7. There can be no life which does not contain something to be grateful for, and the habit of gratitude is one of the most powerful assets of success and happiness which can be named.
Orison Swett Marden
#8. The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.
Orison Swett Marden
#9. We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it including the thorns.
Orison Swett Marden
#10. A strong, successful man is not the victim of his environment. He creates favorable conditions. His own inherent force and energy compel things to turn out as he desires.
Orison Swett Marden
#11. Without this tremendous passion for power, influence, and advantage which money gives, how could nature develop the highest type of man? Without this infinite longing, whence would come the discipline which industry, perseverance, tact, sagacity, and frugality give?
Orison Swett Marden
#12. The power of material things, to bestow happiness, to bring joy into the life is tremendously exaggerated. The right mental attitude, the trained mind, will bring to us the best there is in the universe.
Orison Swett Marden
#13. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everyone around us.
Orison Swett Marden
#15. You will find the whole world will change to you when you change your attitude toward it.
Orison Swett Marden
#16. The most fascinating person is always the one of the most winning manners; not the one of greatest physical beauty.
Orison Swett Marden
#17. It pays to cultivate popularity. It doubles success possibilities, develops manhood, and builds up character.
Orison Swett Marden
#18. What we do for a living does not matter so much as how we do it. It is the spirit in which we do our work that counts, and that counts through all eternity.
Orison Swett Marden
#19. Many a man owes his advancement very largely to his ability to converse well. The ability to interest people in your conversation, to hold them, is a great power.
Orison Swett Marden
#20. It is just the little difference between the good and the best that makes the difference between the artist and the artisan. It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that makes the master's fame.
Orison Swett Marden
#21. The great aim of your life should be to keep your powers up to the highest possible standard, to so conserve your energies, guard your health, that you can make every occasion a great occasion.
Orison Swett Marden
#22. 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.
Orison Swett Marden
#23. The trouble with us is that we try to find happiness where it does not exist, in transient, impermanent things; we try to find it in the gratification of desire; we seek it in animal pleasure. Happiness lives in giving, in doing, not in getting, in grasping.
Orison Swett Marden
#24. Necessity has been a priceless spur which has helped men to perform miracles against incredible odds.
Orison Swett Marden
#25. Let us open up our natures, throw wide the doors of our hearts and let in the sunshine of good will and kindness.
Orison Swett Marden
#26. Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.
Orison Swett Marden
#27. The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'
Orison Swett Marden
#28. The achievements of willpower are almost beyond computation. Scarcely anything seems impossible to the man who can will strongly enough and long enough.
Orison Swett Marden
#29. You are never to allow a shadow of doubt to enter your mind that the Creator intended you to win in life's battle.
Orison Swett Marden
#30. Worry clogs the brain and paralyzes the thought. A troubled brain can not think clearly, vigorously, locally.
Orison Swett Marden
#31. Everybody is struggling for the good things of the world, and all the arguments to prove that they are not desirable are worse than wasted.
Orison Swett Marden
#32. 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 ...
Orison Swett Marden
#33. In order to keep himself at the top of his condition, to obtain complete mastery of all his powers and possibilities, a man must be good to himself mentally; he must think well of himself.
Orison Swett Marden
#34. Let your air be that of a winner, a man who is resolved to make his way in the world, to make himself stand for something.
Orison Swett Marden
#35. And above all, study, study, study ! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard student. It
Orison Swett Marden
#36. There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.
Orison Swett Marden
#37. Epictetus, the pagan philosopher, proved in his life the truth of his own words - "A man can be happy without wealth, without family, without office or honor, without health, without anything that the world seeks after.
Orison Swett Marden
#38. History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized occasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less resolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the world before them.
Orison Swett Marden
#39. Put the uncommon effort into the common task ... make it large by doing it in a great way.
Orison Swett Marden
#42. Our visions are the plans of the possible life structure, but they will end in plans if we do not follow them up with a vigorous effort to make them real, just as the architect's plans will end in his drawings if they are not followed up and made real by the builder.
Orison Swett Marden
#43. There's no grander sight in the world than that of a person fired with a great purpose, dominated by one unwavering aim.
Orison Swett Marden
#44. There is nothing in this world which men desire and struggle for, and that is good for them, of which there is not enough for everybody.
Orison Swett Marden
#45. Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will never fail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for assistance; open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon which to bestow their gifts; open hands will never lack for noble work to do.
Orison Swett Marden
#46. We are all the products of our own thoughts. Whatever we concentrate upon, that we are.
Orison Swett Marden
#47. 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.
Orison Swett Marden
#48. Our dreaming capacity gives us a peep into the glorious realities that await us further on. It is the evidence of things possible to us.
Orison Swett Marden
#49. No man can be ideally successful until he has found his place. Like a locomotive, he is strong on the track, but weak anywhere else.
Orison Swett Marden
#50. Aspiration lifts the life; groveling lowers it. When we are striving for excellence in everything we do the entire life grows and expands, but if we allow our standards to drop, there is a natural progression that follows, a tendency for a downward effort in all that we do thereafter.
Orison Swett Marden
#51. When God calls a man to be upright and pure and generous, he also calls him to be intelligent and skillful, and strong and brave.
Orison Swett Marden
#52. Begin where you are; work where you are; the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success may be crowded with grand possibilities.
Orison Swett Marden
#53. Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. What he at first chooses, at last compels.
Orison Swett Marden
#54. Whatever comes to us in life we create first in our mentality. As the building is a reality in all its details in the architects mind before a stone or brick is laid, so we create mentally everything which later becomes a reality in our achievement.
Orison Swett Marden
#55. Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.
Orison Swett Marden
#56. 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.
Orison Swett Marden
#57. Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seize her.
Orison Swett Marden
#58. No matter where your lot may be cast, no power on earth can keep you from making a man of yourself, a superb character, a masterpiece.
Orison Swett Marden
#59. Even the men most richly endowed with ability, education, and opportunity, even the giants of the race, after the completest life possible, feel, as they stand on the edge of the grave, that they are but human acorns with all their possibilities still in them, just beginning to sprout.
Orison Swett Marden
#61. Laughter brightens the eye, increases the perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the least-used cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or balance which we call health.
Orison Swett Marden
#62. You must bring every particle of your energy, unanswerable resolution, your best efforts, your persistent industry to your task or the best will not come out of you. You must back up your ambition by your whole nature, by unbounded enthusiasm and a determination to win which knows no failure.
Orison Swett Marden
#63. Why do we allow the mirage of to-morrow to keep our eyes from the beauties of to-day?
Orison Swett Marden
#64. If our dreams are sincere desires to achieve, not mere pipe-dreams, there is something deep within ourselves which comes out to meet them and helps to make them realities.
Orison Swett Marden
#65. 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 whom you come in contact everyday.
Orison Swett Marden
#66. Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.
Orison Swett Marden
#67. Genius unexecuted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.
Orison Swett Marden
#68. No two things differ more than Hurry and Dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, Dispatch of a strong one.
Orison Swett Marden
#69. The great opportunity belongs to him who can see it, to him who can grasp it. The better part of your chance is right inside of you.
Orison Swett Marden
#70. Work faithfully, and you will put yourself in possession of a glorious and enlarging happiness.
Orison Swett Marden
#71. How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, all nature smiles, the air seems more balmy, the sky clearer, the earth has a brighter green ... the flowers are more fragrant ... and the sun, moon, and stars all appear more beautiful, and seem to rejoice with us.
Orison Swett Marden
#72. Thrift means that you should always have the best you can possibly afford, when the thing has any reference to your physical and mental health, to your growth in efficiency and power.
Orison Swett Marden
#73. Obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small.
Orison Swett Marden
#74. 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.
Orison Swett Marden
#77. Every man ultimately falls into the company with which he affiliates. And he is the strongest who draws men to himself, who creates the company; and this is through having a positive quality - courage and physical prowess.
Orison Swett Marden
#78. The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer atmosphere.
Orison Swett Marden
#79. Do not give up your dream because it is apparently not being realized, because you cannot see it coming true. Cling to your vision with all the tenacity you can muster. Keep it bright; do not let the bread-and-butter side of life cloud your ideal or dim it.
Orison Swett Marden
#80. Enthusiasm will steady the heart and strengthen the will; it will give force to the thought and nerve to the hand until what was only a possibility becomes a reality.
Orison Swett Marden
#81. If you would attract good fortune, you must get rid of doubt. As long as that stands between you and your ambition, it will be a bar that will cut you off. You must have faith. No man can make a fortune while he is convinced that he can't.
Orison Swett Marden
#82. Instead of worrying over unforeseen misfortune, set out with all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen blessings of all your coming days.
Orison Swett Marden
#83. Unless generosity of spirit prevails among men, there can never be upon earth an ideal life.
Orison Swett Marden
#84. He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others.
Orison Swett Marden
#85. Agassiz would not lecture at five hundred dollars a night, because he had no time to make money.
Orison Swett Marden
#86. Fun is the cheapest and best medicine in the world for your children as well as for yourself. Give it to them in good large doses. It will not only save you doctors' bills, but it will also help to make your children happier, and will improve their chances in life.
Orison Swett Marden
#88. We lift ourselves by our own thought; we climb upon our vision of ourselves.
Orison Swett Marden
#89. If he would only burst his self-imposed shackles, get out of himself, break away from the narrow bounds of his sickly, limited thought, he could be a power in the world.
Orison Swett Marden
#90. Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals.
Orison Swett Marden
#91. The tonic of success is a marvelous producer as well as stimulant. By the law of mental magnetism one success attracts another, and after we begin to win it is comparatively easy to keep on winning.
Orison Swett Marden
#92. The secret of success lies in that old word, 'Drudgery,' in doing one thing long after it ceases to be amusing; and it is 'this one thing I do' that gathers me together from my chaos, that concentrates me from possibilities to powers, and turns powers into achievements.
Orison Swett Marden
#93. Wanted: a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting a living.
Orison Swett Marden
#94. There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.
Orison Swett Marden
#95. Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them ... they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.
Orison Swett Marden
#96. Our thoughts are like roots which reach out in every direction into the cosmic ocean of formless energy, and these thought-roots set in motion vibrations like themselves and attract the affinities of our desires and ambitions.
Orison Swett Marden
#97. Every experience in life, everything with which we have come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting away at our life statue, molding, modifying, shaping it. We are part of all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt or thought has had its hand in molding us, shaping us.
Orison Swett Marden
#98. 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.
Orison Swett Marden
#99. No matter how humble your work may seem, do it in the spirit of an artist, of a master. In this way you lift it out of commonness and rob it of what would otherwise be drudgery.
Orison Swett Marden
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