On Being Successful

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now. (Johann Worfgang von Goethe)

Consider the postage stamp:  its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. (Josh Billings)

Eighty percent of success is showing up. (Woody Allen)

Every miracle in the Bible starts with a Problem. (Dr. John Maxwell)

Just because others have decided what's best for you doesn't mean you are incapable of deciding for yourself.

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value. (Albert Einstein)

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. (Christopher Morley)

To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. (Elbert Hubbard)

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. (Henry Ford)

The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat, it is to prevail. (President George W. Bush)

You don't drown by falling into the water; you drown by staying there.

By failing to plan, you are planning to fail.

Success is getting what you want;

Happiness is wanting what you get.

(Dale Carnegie)

Minds are like Parachutes... they only function when open.

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. (Will Rogers)

Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you. (Aldous Huxley)

Ships are safe in the harbor, but they were never meant to stay there.

It is not whether you get knocked down, it is whether you get up. (Vince Lombardi)

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. (Abraham Lincoln)

One of the biggest troubles with success is that its recipe is often the same as that for a nervous breakdown.

If you can't win the race, make the one ahead of you break the record.

The direction we are facing has a lot to do with our destination.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius. (Joseph Addison)

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. (Henry David Thoreau)

Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)

The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. (Donald H. Rumsfeld)

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. (Bob Dylan)

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. (Chinese Proverb)

A bad attitude is like a flat tire - you'll never go anywhere till you fix it.

Don't let what you can't do interfere with what you can do.

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. (Thomas Edison)

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to. (George Allen)

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. (Les Brown)

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. (Gen. George S. Patton)

You can't get a job by reading the want ads; you get the job by going out and applying for the jobs.

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. (Henry Van Dyke)

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. (Henry David Thoreau)

The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, 'Go!' - a leader says, 'Let's go!'. (E. M. Kelly)

Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. (Rita Mae Brown OR Barry LePatner)

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. (Confucius)

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. (Norman Vincent Peale)

We want to be rich, to be admired, to eat like a horse and be skinny as a snake. To have small children ask for our autographs, to be on terrific medications that make us calm and witty and sexy. To sing Irving Berlin and Gershwin and Porter at the Oak Room and be described as 'luminous.' But in the absence of all that, it's enough to be loved. (Garrison Keillor)

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him. (Sidney Greenberg)

He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much. (Elbert Hubbard)

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened. (John M. Richardson, Jr.)

Sometimes instead of climbing over barricades, you've got to walk around them. (Bono)

The greatestest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. (Walter Bagehot)

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't. (George Bernard Shaw, "The Apple Cart")

Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present. (Roger Babson)

My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success. (Helen Hayes)

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

It is better to have a little ability and use it well, than to have much ability and use it poorly.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. (louis D. Brandeis)

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing. (Abraham Lincoln)

I takes 20 years to make an overnight success. (Eddie Cantor)

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." (Erma Bombeck)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. (Theodore Roosevelt)

To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone. (Reba McEntire)

You cannot be a success in any business without believing that it is the greatest business in the world... You have to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart. (Thomas Watson Snr.)

When you walk up to Opportunity's door, don't knock it. Kick that bitch in, smile, and introduce yourself. (Dwayne Johnson)

As for conceit, what man will do any good who is not conceited? Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself. (Anthony Trollope)

The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well. (Baron Pierre de Coubertin)