The greatest thing a man can possibly do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Success
Conquer yourself and you can conquer everything else.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Optimistic Life
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.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Miracle of Right Thought
The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Getting On
The inspiration of a single book has made preachers, poets, philosophers, authors, and statesmen. On the other hand, the demoralization of a single book has sometimes made infidels, profligates, and criminals.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
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.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Optimistic Life
Almost every wealthy man in this country will tell you that his greatest satisfaction and happiest days were when he was emerging from poverty into a competency; when he first felt the tonic from the swelling of his small savings towards the stream of fortune, and knew that want would no longer dog his steps.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Miracle of Right Thought
The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember of them, but from their suggestiveness. A good book often serves as a match to light the dormant power within us.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
Pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Getting On
Whatever comes to us in life we create first in our mentality. As the building is a reality in all its details in the architects mind before a stone or brick is laid, so we create mentally everything which later becomes a reality in our achievement.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Miracle of Right Thought
The moment man cuts himself off from living connection with the human race and its needs, he begins to die from poor circulation.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
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.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, He Can Who Thinks He Can
Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Optimistic Life
Good cheer is a great lubricant; it oils all of life's machinery.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Getting On
Opportunities? They are all around us.... There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, He Can Who Thinks He Can
Poverty often hides her charms under an ugly mask; yet thousands have been forced into greatness by their very struggle to keep the wolf from the door.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
No matter how humble your work may seem, do it in the spirit of an artist, of a master. In this way you lift it out of commonness and rob it of what would otherwise be drudgery.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, He Can Who Thinks He Can
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.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Miracle of Right Thought
The universe is one great kindergarten. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon our soul.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
One penny may seem to you a very insignificant thing, but it is the small seed from which fortunes spring.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Optimistic Life
The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer atmosphere.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
The dreaming faculty, like every other faculty, may be abused. A great many people do nothing but dream. They spend all their energies in building air castles which they never try to make real; they live in an unnatural, delusive, theoretical atmosphere until the faculties become paralyzed from inaction. It is a splendid thing to dream when you have the grit and tenacity of purpose and the resolution to match your dreams with realities, but dreaming without effort, wishing without putting forth exertion to realize the wish, undermines the character. It is only practical dreaming that counts--dreaming coupled with hard work and persistent endeavor.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, He Can Who Thinks He Can
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.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, The Miracle of Right Thought
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, Getting On
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.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Architects of Fate
Dreams that are realized become an inspiration for new endeavor. It is in the power to make the dream good that we find the hope of this world.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN, He Can Who Thinks He Can
