Orison Swett Marden Men Quotations

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.

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson.

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.

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.

The influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor.

Power gravitates to the man who knows how.

The size of your accomplishments, the quality of your achievement, will depend very largely on how big a man you see in yourself, what sort of image you get of your possible self, yourself at your best.

Wanted, a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say "No," though all the world say "Yes.

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.

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.

Necessity has been a priceless spur which has helped men to perform miracles against incredible odds.

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.

Unless generosity of spirit prevails among men, there can never be upon earth an ideal life.

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.

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.

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.

No man fails who does his best.

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

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.

There is a legend that when God was equipping man for his long life journey of exploration, the attendant good angel was about to add the gift of contentment and complete satisfaction. The Creator stayed his hand and said, 'No, if you bestow that upon him you will rob him forever of all joy of self-discovery.'

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.

A man will remain a rag-picker as long as he has only the vision of a rag-picker.

Society is to the individual what the sun and showers are to the seed. It develops him, expands him, unfolds him, calls him out of himself. Other men are his opportunity. Each one is a match which ignites some new tinder in him unignitible by any previous match. Without these the sparks of individuality would sleep in him forever.

As long as a man faces life hopefully, confidently, triumphantly he is not a failure

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.

It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master's fame.

A great many people never really discover themselves until ruin stares them in the face. They do not seem to know how to bring out their reserves until they are overtaken by an overwhelming disaster, or until the sight of their blighted prospects and of the wreck of their homes and happiness stirs them to the very center of their beings.... There is something in defeat which puts new determination into a man of mettle.

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 successful men of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose.

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.

No young man starting in life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit, support him in every great effort, and make him what, unaided, he could never be. Friends of the right sort will help him more - to be happy and successful - than much money.

The man who has not learned the secret of taking the drudgery out of his task by flinging his whole soul into it, has not learned the first principles of success or happiness.

The moment man cuts himself off from living connection with the human race and its needs, he begins to die from poor circulation.

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.

The world makes way for the man with an idea.

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.

When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.

This is the test of your manhood: How much is there left in you after you have lost everything outside of yourself?

Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. What he at first chooses, at last compels.

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

No man can hope to accomplish anything great in this world until he throws his whole soul, flings the force of his whole life, into it. It is not enough simply to have a general desire to accomplish something. There is but one way to do that; and that is, to try to be somebody with all the concentrated energy we can muster.

It is certain that the greatest poets, orators, statesmen, and historians, men of the most brilliant and imposing talents, have labored as hard, if not harder, than day laborers; and that the most obvious reason why they have been superior to other men is that they have taken more pains than other men.

Work, love and play are the great balance wheels of man's being.

No man is beaten until his hope is annihilated, his confidence gone, As long as a man faces life hopefully, confidently, triumphantly, he is not a failure; he is not beaten until he turns his back on life.

The giants of the race have been men of concentration, who have struck sledge-hammer blows in one place until they have accomplished their purpose. The successful men of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose.

Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened.

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.

Most men fail, not through lack of education, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless will.

Self-Control is the very essence of character. To be able to look a man straight in the eye, calmly and deliberately, without the slightest ruffle of temper under extreme provocation, gives a sense of power which nothing else can give. To feel that you are always, not sometimes, master of yourself, gives a dignity and strength to character, buttresses it, supports it on every side, as nothing else can. This is the culmination of thought mastery.