Quotes by Orison Marden

• Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.
• The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson.
• 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.
• The quality of your work, in the long run, is the deciding factor on how much your services are valued by the world.
• 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.
• The influential man is the successful man, whether he be rich or poor.
• The hand cannot reach higher than does the heart.
• The greatest thing a man can 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.
• The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'
• 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.
• 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.
• When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.
• 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.
• Put the uncommon effort into the common task... make it large by doing it in a great way.
• Power gravitates to the man who knows how.
• Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us.
• Our thoughts and imagination are the only real limits to our possibilities.
• 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.
• Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them... they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.
• 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.
• No one has a corner on success. It is his who pays the price.
• No man fails who does his best.
• The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
• We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.
• 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 waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling.
• 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.
• There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King.
• 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.
• There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.
• There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.
• There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.
• There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.
• There is no stimulus like that which comes from the consciousness of knowing that others believe in us.
• There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to do our level best right where we are every day of our lives; To use our best judgment, and then to trust the rest to that Power which holds the forces of the universe in his hands.
• 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.
• Unless you have prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you just in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it.
• What power can poverty have over a home where loving hearts are beating with a consciousness of untold riches of the head and heart?
• We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.
• We must give more in order to get more. It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest.
• You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else.
• You have not found your place until all your faculties are roused, and your whole nature consents and approves of the work you are doing.
• 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.
• Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.
• 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.
• To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.
• Your outlook upon life, your estimate of yourself, your estimate of your value are largely colored by your environment. Your whole career will be modified, shaped, molded by your surroundings, by the character of the people with whom you come in contact every day.
• 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 the soul of man.
• Be larger than your task.
• A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.
• A good system shortens the road to the goal.
• 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.
• A will finds a way.
• 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.
• All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.
• Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.
• Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.
• Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.
• 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.
• Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him.
• If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.
• It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.
• It is what we do easily and what we like to do that we do well.
• Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us.
• 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.
• All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.