Orison Swett Marden Ambition Quotations

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.

Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desire.

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.

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.

Men are naturally lazy, and require some great stimulus to goad their flagging ambitions and enable them to overcome the inertia which comes from ease and the consciousness of inherited wealth. Whatever lessens in a young man the feeling that he must make his way in the world cripples his chance of success. Poverty has ever been the priceless spur that has goaded man up to his own loaf.

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.

Ambition is the incentive that makes purpose GREAT and ACHIEVEMENT greater!

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.