Top 100 Swett Quotes
#1. The child should be taught to consider his instructor ... superior to the parent in point of authority ... The vulgar impression that parents have a legal right to dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous ... Parents have no remedy as against the teacher.
John Swett
#2. 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
#3. He is the richest man who enriches his country most; in whom the people feel richest and proudest; who gives himself with his money; who opens the doors of opportunity widest to those about him; who is ears to the deaf, eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.
Orison Swett Marden
#4. 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
#5. Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness, but industry makes the commonest chances golden.
Orison Swett Marden
#6. Worry clogs the brain and paralyzes the thought. A troubled brain can not think clearly, vigorously, locally.
Orison Swett Marden
#7. A man will remain a rag-picker as long as he has only the vision of a rag-picker.
Orison Swett Marden
#8. 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
#9. 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
#10. The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'
Orison Swett Marden
#11. The hopeful man sees success where others see failure, sunshine where others see shadows and storm.
Orison Swett Marden
#12. Put variety into your mental bill of fare as well as into your physical. It will pay you rich returns.
Orison Swett Marden
#13. Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.
Orison Swett Marden
#14. 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
#15. 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
#16. The divine injunction to be perfect, even as He is perfect, was not given man to mock him. The possibility of our waking in His likeness is literally true.
Orison Swett Marden
#17. Necessity has been a priceless spur which has helped men to perform miracles against incredible odds.
Orison Swett Marden
#18. You have not found your place until all your faculties are roused, and your whole nature consents and approves of the work you are doing.
Orison Swett Marden
#19. 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
#20. Every one who has labored honestly in the past has aided to place knowledge and comfort within the reach of a constantly increasing number.
Orison Swett Marden
#21. Who would have ever heard of Theodore Roosevelt outside of his immediate community if he had only half committed himself? The great secret of his career was that he has flung his whole life with all the determination and energy he could muster.
Orison Swett Marden
#22. The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember of them, but from their suggestiveness, their character-building power.
Orison Swett Marden
#24. Whoever uplifts civilization is rich though he die penniless, and future generations will erect his monument.
Orison Swett Marden
#25. 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
#26. 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
#28. The trouble with us is that we expect too much from the great happenings, the unusual things, and we overlook the common flowers on the path of life, from which we might abstract sweets, comforts, delights.
Orison Swett Marden
#29. Put the uncommon effort into the common task ... make it large by doing it in a great way.
Orison Swett Marden
#30. 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
#31. No one is mocked with the yearning for that which he has no ability to attain. If he holds the right mental attitude and struggles earnestly, honestly toward his goal, he will reach it, or at least approximate to it.
Orison Swett Marden
#32. We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest.
Orison Swett Marden
#33. When the mind has once formed the habit of holding cheerful, happy, prosperous pictures, it will not be easy to form the opposite habit.
Orison Swett Marden
#34. 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
#35. It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining that he has no time or opportunity.
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. All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.
Orison Swett Marden
#38. Pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up.
Orison Swett Marden
#39. Life is a great university for the unfolding of the mind, for developing character. In choosing our life work, when we are free to choose, we should remember this, and choose that which will call the biggest man or woman out of us and not that from which we can coin the most dollars.
Orison Swett Marden
#41. Our thoughts, our faith, our beliefs, our efforts, all materialize, and are objectified about us. Our words become flesh and live with us; our thoughts, our emotions, also become flesh and live with us; they become our environment and surround us.
Orison Swett Marden
#42. When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.
Orison Swett Marden
#44. The man who has no money is poor, but one who has nothing but money is poorer. He only is rich who can enjoy without owning; he is poor who though he has millions is covetous.
Orison Swett Marden
#45. 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
#46. More men are ruined by underestimating the value of money than by overestimating it. Let us, then, abandon the affectation of despising money, and frankly own its value.
Orison Swett Marden
#47. If you cannot at first control your anger, learn to control your tongue, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a hard master.
Orison Swett Marden
#48. Self-confidence carries conviction; it makes other people believe in us.
Orison Swett Marden
#50. There is inestimable blessing in a cheerful spirit. When the soul throws its windows wide open, letting in the sunshine, and presenting to all who see it the evidence of its gladness, it is not only happy, but it has an unspeakable power of doing good.
Orison Swett Marden
#51. He has missed the finest lesson of culture and experience who has not learned how to enjoy without owning.
Orison Swett Marden
#52. The man who would forge to the front in this competitive age must be a man of prompt and determined decision.
Orison Swett Marden
#53. 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
#54. 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
#55. 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
#56. 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
#57. 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
#58. There is no surer token of a little mind than to imagine that anything in the way of physical labor is dishonoring.
Orison Swett Marden
#59. If you are ambitious to talk well, you must be as much as possible in the society of well-bred, cultured people. If you seclude yourself, though you are a college graduate, you will be a poor converser.
Orison Swett Marden
#60. Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him.
Orison Swett Marden
#61. Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.
Orison Swett Marden
#62. 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
#63. 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
#64. Personal nobility is greater than any calling, or any reward that it can bring.
Orison Swett Marden
#65. The world is a looking-glass which flings back to us the reflection of ourselves. If we laugh it laughs back at us. If we shed tears, it reflects a sorrowful face.
Orison Swett Marden
#66. A woman who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes her work with the assurance of success magnetizes her condition. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe.
Orison Swett Marden
#68. Make every occasion a great occasion, for you can never tell who may be taking your measure for a higher place.
Orison Swett Marden
#69. The wearer of smiles and the bearer of a kindly disposition needs no introduction, but is welcome anywhere.
Orison Swett Marden
#70. The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Orison Swett Marden
#71. When you finish a thing you ought to be able to say to yourself: 'There, I am willing to stand for that piece of work. It is not pretty well done; it is done as well as I can do it; done to a complete finish. I will stand for that. I am willing to be judged by it.'
Orison Swett Marden
#72. Real happiness comes from the cultivation, the development, of the highest that is in us.
Orison Swett Marden
#73. It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master's fame.
Orison Swett Marden
#74. 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
#76. Strength of will is the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip?
Orison Swett Marden
#77. To have done no man a wrong ... to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, with nothing between your desire and its gratification but the invisible law of rectitude - this is to be a man
Orison Swett Marden
#78. 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
#79. 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
#81. A man who might have been symmetrical, well-rounded, had he availed himself of every opportunity of touching life along all sides, remains a pygmy in everything except his own little specialty, because he did not cultivate his social side. It
Orison Swett Marden
#82. The habit of learning to appreciate to the utmost every situation in life adds wonderfully to the sum total of one's happiness. But many people are incapable of real happiness because they never learn to appreciate anything except that which appeals to their own comfort, pleasure, or appetite.
Orison Swett Marden
#83. The college diploma has no more power to hold the knowledge you have gained in college than a piece of tissue paper over a gas jet can hold the gas in the pipe.
Orison Swett Marden
#84. 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
#85. Anybody can work when everything goes smoothly, when there is nothing to trouble him; but a man must be made of the right kind of stuff who can rise above the things which harass and handicap the weak, and do his work in spite of them. Indeed, this is the test of greatness.
Orison Swett Marden
#86. 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
#87. The man who practises unselfishness, who is genuinely interested in the welfare of others, who feels it a privilege to have the power to do a fellow-creature a kindness - even though polished manners and a gracious presence may be absent - will be an elevating influence wherever he goes.
Orison Swett Marden
#88. Whatever you do, don't discourage your dreaming propensity. Your heart's desires are not empty vaporings. They foreshadow possible realities. Man was made to aspire, to look upward.
Orison Swett Marden
#89. Ambition is the incentive that makes purpose GREAT and ACHIEVEMENT greater!
Orison Swett Marden
#90. There is genius in persistence. It conquers all opposers. It gives confidence. It annihilates obstacles. Everybody believes in a determined man. People know that when he undertakes a thing, the battle is half won, for his rule is to accomplish whatever he sets out to do.
Orison Swett Marden
#91. Defeats and failures are great developers of character. They have made the giants of our race by giving Titanic muscles, brawny sinews, and far-reaching intellects.
Orison Swett Marden
#92. If we hold the poverty thought, the penury thought, the thought of lack, we cannot demonstrate abundance. We must hold the plenty thought if we would reach plenty.
Orison Swett Marden
#94. The first part of success is "Get-to-it-iveness"; the second part of success is "Stick-to-it-iveness".
Orison Swett Marden
#95. Fear is a great robber of power. It paralyzes the thinking faculties, ruins spontaneity, enthusiasm, and self confidence. It has a blighting effect upon all one's thoughts, moods, and efforts. It destroys ambition and efficiency.
Orison Swett Marden
#96. It pays to cultivate popularity. It doubles success possibilities, develops manhood, and builds up character.
Orison Swett Marden
#97. The most fascinating person is always the one of the most winning manners; not the one of greatest physical beauty.
Orison Swett Marden
#98. You will find the whole world will change to you when you change your attitude toward it.
Orison Swett Marden
#100. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everyone around us.
Orison Swett Marden
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