Orison Swett Marden Quotes

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.

~ Orison Swett Marden

Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.

~ Orison Swett Marden

One hour a day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits and profitably employed would enable any man of ordinary capacity to master a complete science. One hour a day would in ten years make an ignorant man a well-informed man…In an hour a day, a boy or girl could read twenty pages thoughtfully—over seven thousand pages, or eighteen large volumes in a year. An hour a day might make all the difference between bare existence and useful, happy living. An hour a day might make—nay, has made—an unknown man a famous one, a useless man a benefactor to his race.

~ Orison Swett Marden

The great trouble with all of us who are struggling with unhappy or unfortunate conditions is that we have separated ourselves in some way from the great magnetic center of creation. We are not thinking right, and so we are not attracting the right things. “Think the things you want.” The profoundest philosophy is locked up in these few words. Think of them clearly, persistently, concentrating upon them with all the force and might of your mind, and struggle toward them with all your energy. This is the way to make yourself a magnet for the things you want. But the moment you begin to doubt, to worry, to fear, you demagnetize yourself, and the things you desire flee from you. You drive them away by your mental attitude. They cannot come near you while you are deliberately separating yourself from them. You are going in one direction, and the things you want are going in the opposite direction.

~ Orison Swett Marden

Books make it possible for every person born into the world to begin where the previous generation left off.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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 whom you come in contact everyday.

~ Orison Swett Marden

The highest happiness is the feeling of wellbeing which comes to one who is actively employed in doing what he was made to do, carrying out the great life-purpose patterned in his individual bent.

~ Orison Swett Marden

What we do when defeat stares us in the face is the real touchstone of character. But the very fact that success has time and again proved the means of awakening people to the knowledge of greater ability than they ever before dreamed they possessed, ought to hearten and encourage us to keep on no matter how often we fail. If we brace ourselves and continue to push forward we will ultimately win out. (From Everybody ahead, or getting the most out of life)

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

You will find the whole world will change to you when you change your attitude toward it.

~ Orison Swett Marden

Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hallmark of excellence.

~ Orison Swett Marden

The tonic of success is a marvelous producer as well as stimulant. By the law of mental magnetism one success attracts another, and after we begin to win it is comparatively easy to keep on winning.

~ Orison Swett Marden

The college diploma has no more power to hold the knowledge you have gained in college than a piece of tissue paper over a gas jet can hold the gas in the pipe.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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

~ Orison Swett Marden

Live and let live is not enough live and help live is not too much.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

It is the hopeful, buoyant, cheerful attitude of mind that wins. Optimism is a success builder; pessimism an achievement killer.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

If our dreams are sincere desires to achieve, not mere pipe-dreams, there is something deep within ourselves which comes out to meet them and helps to make them realities.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

The most irresistible charm of youth is its bubbling enthusiasm. Youth sees no darkness ahead - no defile that has no outlet - it forgets that there is such a thing as failure in the world and believes that mankind has been waiting all these centuries for him to come and be the liberator of truth and energy and beauty.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

Sweeter than the perfume of roses is a reputation for a kind, charitable, unselfish nature; a ready disposition to do to others any good turn in your power.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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

~ Orison Swett Marden

When we begin to desire a thing, to yearn for it with all our hearts, we begin to establish relationship with it in proportion to the strength and persistency of our longing and intelligent effort to realize it.

~ Orison Swett Marden

Strength of will is the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip?

~ Orison Swett Marden

Discouragement, fear, doubt, lack of self-confidence, are the germs which have killed the prosperity and happiness of tens of thousands of people.

~ Orison Swett Marden

One can make no better investment than the cultivation of a taste for the beautiful, for it will bring rainbow hues and enduring joys to the whole life. It will not only greatly increase one's capacity for happiness, but also one's efficiency.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

There is inestimable blessing in a cheerful spirit. When the soul throws its windows wide open, letting in the sunshine, and presenting to all who see it the evidence of its gladness, it is not only happy, but it has an unspeakable power of doing good.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden

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.

~ Orison Swett Marden