Top 90 Orison Swett Marden Quotes

He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others.

No employer today is independent of those about him. He cannot succeed alone, no matter how great his ability or capital. Business today is more than ever a question of cooperation.

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.

Put variety into your mental bill of fare as well as into your physical. It will pay you rich returns.

Do not waste time dreaming of great faraway opportunities; do the best you can where you are. Open your petals of power and beauty and fling out the fragrance of your life in the place that has been assigned to you.

It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining that he has no time or opportunity.

Charm of personality is a divine gift that sways the strongest characters and sometimes even controls the destinies of nations.

No man fails who does his best.

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?

Your expectations opens or closes the doors of your supply, If you expect grand things, and work honestly for them, they will come to you, your supply will correspond with your expectation.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

The great thing in life is efficiency. If you amount to anything in the world, your time is valuable, your energy precious. They are your success capital, and you cannot afford to heedlessly throw them away or trifle with them.

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

It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind.

The true doctrine is that labor – systematic, effective, congenial labor – is not only a necessity, but is the source of the highest enjoyment.

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.

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.

Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

Power gravitates to the man who knows how.

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.

Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do. Never for an instant harbor a doubt of it.

What is needed by him who would succeed in the highest degree possible is careful planning. He is to accumulate reserved power, that he may be equal to all emergencies.

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.

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.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

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.

By constant contemplation of excellence, we clear our selfhood of all dross and impurities.

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.

He has missed the finest lesson of culture and experience who has not learned how to enjoy without owning.

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.

Nothing that the mind of man can conceive is impossible.

The ability to cultivate friends is a powerful aid to success. It is capital which will stand by one when panics come, when banks fail, when business concerns go to the wall.

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.

There is not a single indication in man’s wonderful mechanism that he was created for a life of poverty. There is something larger and grander for him in the divine plan than perpetual slavery to the bread-winning problem.

Nearly all the great improvements, discoveries, inventions, and achievements which have elevated and blessed humanity have been the triumphs of enthusiasm.

There is no surer token of a little mind than to imagine that anything in the way of physical labor is dishonoring.

The sort of man you will make of yourself, how you will be regarded by the world, whether people will admire and respect or despise you, whether you win the approval or the condemnation of your Maker – all this is in your own hands.

Poverty itself is not so bad as the poverty thought. It is the conviction that we are poor and must remain so that is fatal.

Form the habit early in life of leaving your business at the store or wherever you may be employed. Never carry it home to mar the peace of your family; if you do, you will soon drive out the sunshine.

Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.

Just try the effect of putting beauty into your life, a little every day. You will find it magical. It will broaden and light up your outlook upon the world as the acquisition of money or fame never can.

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.

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.

Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness, but industry makes the commonest chances golden.

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.

There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance, and half the battle is in the conviction that we can do what we undertake.

We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.

I wish I could fill every young man who reads these pages with an utter dread and horror of poverty. I wish I could make you so feel its shame, its constraint, its bitterness that you would make vows against it.

The man who would forge to the front in this competitive age must be a man of prompt and determined decision.

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.

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.

Put the uncommon effort into the common task… make it large by doing it in a great way.

No one can make the most of himself until he looks upon his life as a magnificent possibility, the materials for a great masterpiece, to mar or spoil which would be a great tragedy.

You are never to allow a shadow of doubt to enter your mind that the Creator intended you to win in life’s battle.

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.

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.

Regard every suggestion that your life may be a failure, that you are not made like those who succeed, and that success is not for you, as a traitor, and expel it from your mind as you would a thief from your house.