Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Secrets of Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Imagine That! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Believe in Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Taking Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Be Persistent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Be Enthusiastic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Introduction
What does success mean to you?
However you define success, the starting point for achieving it is in the
definition itself. As Mike Brescia says, “you can’t reach success if you can’t
define it.” You have to “begin with the end in mind” according to Stephen
Covey. In simple terms, you have to know where you’re going and, more
importantly, why you’re going there in order to know when you’ve arrived.
This collection of successful thoughts will help you to define success on your
own terms. In reflecting on the words of other successful people you will gain
insight into yourself, and the what, why, and how of your journey to success
will become more clear.
For myself, in putting this compilation together for you, I experienced many of
those “ah ha!” moments. You know, the ones where suddenly the light comes
on and you think to yourself, “Ah ha! It’s all clear to me now!”
Whatever success means to you, and wherever you are on your journey, it is
my sincere wish that this book provides you with an ah ha! moment or two of
your own.
If you would like to share your definitions of success or any insights you’ve
gained from the quotations herein, I invite you to either email me, or visit The
Acorn Stash and leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
Lena
Helena Ritchie
October 2009
You can read them in order or flip to a random quote. Either way,
here’s a couple of ideas on what to do with them beyond just reading:
As you read each quote, take a moment or two to reflect on what meaning or
insights it brings to your life. Ask yourself questions like:
You can also use a quote as the starting point for a meditation. Sit quietly and
relax and just let the words tumble over in your mind and see what feelings
and images they bring to the surface.
2. Journal on a Quote
Pick a quote at random, and just start writing. See where the words lead you
and what comes out of them. It’s a really good way to get the creative juices
flowing, especially if you haven’t written in awhile, or are struggling with
writer’s block.
Use the same questions you asked yourself when reflecting on the quote, or
just write in free flow. Either way, you’ll be surprised and what ends up on the
page when you’re done.
Success is...
Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and
being content with what you get.
– Bernard Meltzer
What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that
you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have
hard work and a certain sense of purpose.
– Margaret Thatcher
Success is creating a state of mind that allows you to obtain whatever it is you
really want.
– Mark Victor Hansen
Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
– Robert Collier
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
Success is 20% skills and 80% strategy. You might know how to read, but
more importantly, what’s your plan to read?
– Jim Rohn
When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word ‘succeed’, you
find it simply means to follow through.
– F. W. Nichol
Success is every minute you live. It’s the process of living. It’s stopping for the
moments of beauty, of pleasure; the moments of peace. Success is not a
destination that you ever reach. Success is the quality of the journey.
– Jennifer James
Success is living up to your potential. That’s all. Wake up with a smile and go
after life ... live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it.
– Joe Knapp
Success is like a ladder and no one has ever climbed a ladder with
their hands in their pockets.
– Zig Ziglar
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
– Dale Carnegie
Secrets of Success
People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can
do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of
success.
– Norman Vincent Peale
The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first.
– Mark Twain
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how
to get along with people.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical
and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing
weary.
– Thomas Edison
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
– Oscar Wilde
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity
when it comes.
– Benjamin Disraeli
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got
it made.
– Jean Giraudoux
I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as
the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
– John D. Rockefeller
Recipe for success: Study while others are sleeping; work while others are
loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing.
– William A Ward
The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of
having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you are in control of your
life. If you don't, life controls you.
– Anthony Robbins
Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the
secret of success.
– Swami Sivananda
Imagine That!
The great successful men of the world have used their imagination... they
think ahead and create their mental picture in all it details, filling in here,
adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building –
steadily building.
– Robert Collier
Success doesn't come the way you think it does, it comes from the way
you think.
– Robert Schuller
If you conduct yourself as though you expect to be successful and happy, you
will seldom be disappointed.
– Brian Tracy
Hold a picture of Yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye, and
you will be drawn towards it. If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered
by self.
– Napoleon Hill
Mind is the Master-power that molds and makes, and Man is Mind, and
evermore he takes the Tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills, brings
forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills. He thinks in secret and it comes to
pass; environment is but his looking-glass.
– James Allen
Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
– Charles F. Kettering
For imagination sets the goal "picture" which our automatic mechanism
works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of "will", as is so
commonly believed, but because of imagination.
– Maxwell Maltz
Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of
your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.
– Napoleon Hill
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will
what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.
– George Bernard Shaw
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go
nowhere.
– Carl Sagan
All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers. They imagine what
their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day
toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.
– Brian Tracy
Champions aren’t made in the gym. Champions are made from something
they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision.
– Muhammad Ali
All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.
– Orison Swett Marsden
Believe in Yourself
Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that
determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat
you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact
because you think you are.
– Norman Vincent Peale
People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can
do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of
success.
– Norman Vincent Peale
Whether you think you can or think you can't – you are right.
– Henry Ford
When I look back on it now, I am so glad that the one thing that I had in
my life was my belief that everything in life is a learning experience,
whether it be positive or negative. If you can see it as a learning
experience, you can turn any negative into a positive.
– Neve Campbell
Mind is all that counts. You can be whatever you make up your mind to be.
– Robert Collier
The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can
do something, you can do it as long as you really believe 100 percent.
– Arnold Schwarzenegger
It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that
belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
– Claude M. Bristol
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
– Epictetus
You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want
to be.
– David Viscott
For those that have the courage to believe and the strength to run
their own race victory is certain!
– Gertrude Johnson
Anything's possible. We can be told, you have a ninety percent chance, a fifty
percent chance, or a one percent chance, but as long as you take that chance
and believe in yourself, and be a brave person, and want to live, and want to
be better than you were before... I'm living proof that we get second chances,
and the second time around is better than the first.
– Lance Armstrong
If we can conceive it, and we can believe it, then we can achieve it.
– Goethe
You can change your beliefs so they empower your dreams and
desires. Create a strong belief in yourself and what you want.
– Marcia Wieder
Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really
believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the
way to solution.
– David J. Schwartz
The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in
a thing makes it happen.
– Frank Lloyd Wright
The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life
is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.
– Richard M. DeVos
The first and most important step toward ... success is the feeling that we can
succeed.
– Nelson Boswell
Every achiever I have ever met says, ‘My life turned around when I began to
believe in me.’
– Robert Schuller
You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.
– John Addison
Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can
do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember,
you can achieve.
– Mary Kay Ash
Setting Goals
Setting goals is one of the most important things you can do to guarantee your
personal, professional and financial success. Goals are like a road map to
your target destination. Each goal accomplished is another mile behind you on
the way to where you want to be.
– Mark Victor Hansen
Develop sincere desire for the goal. Out of fire of desire comes success.
– Author Unknown.
People with goals succeed, because they know where they're going.
• Earl Nightingale
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal and Then leap in
the dark to our success.
– Henry David Thoreau
The best intentions don't mean nearly as much as a failed attempt. For many
people, that first action is the toughest and can result in the biggest victory.
The decision to try takes courage, which can be hard to come by sometimes.
How many times have you longed to do something worthwhile, but couldn't
quite get yourself to take that first step? It's important to remember that
success isn't always found in the goal you're pursuing. You can be a success
just by trying. You gain by learning, you gain by growing, you gain by being
just a little closer to your goal than you were yesterday.
– Author Unknown
Goals: There is no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There
is no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There is no telling what
will happen when you act upon them.
– Jim Rohn
Goals give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are
an incentive to keep you going all day. Goals tend to tap the deeper
resources and draw the best out of life.
– Harvey Mackay
Circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, but never lose sight of
your goals. Prepare yourself in every way you can by increasing your
knowledge and adding to your experiences, so that you can make the most of
opportunity when it occurs.
– Mario Andretti
Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set
sail with no destination.
– Fitzhugh Dodson
The goal you set must be challenging. At the same time, it should be
realistic and attainable, not impossible to reach. It should be
challenging enough to make you stretch, but not so far that you break.
– Rick Hansen
You must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short
term failures.
– Charles C. Noble
Setting goals for your game is an art. The trick is in setting them at
the right level neither too low nor too high.
– Greg Norman
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his
goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
– Thomas Jefferson
By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the
process of becoming the person you most want to be.
– Mark Victor Hansen
The person with a fixed goal, a clear picture of his desire, or an ideal always
before him, causes it, through repetition, to be buried deeply in his
subconscious mind and is thus enabled, thanks to its generative and
sustaining power, to realize his goal in a minimum of time and with a minimum
of physical effort. Just pursue the thought unceasingly. Step by step you will
achieve realization, for all your faculties and powers become directed to that
end.
– Claude M. Bristol
Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.
– E. Joseph Crossman
The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to
accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value
than what you get.
– Jim Rohn
Rewrite your major goals every day, in the present tense, exactly as if they
already existed.
– Brian Tracy
Reduce your plan to writing... The moment you complete this, you
will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.
– Napoleon Hill
A goal is created three times. First as a mental picture. Second, when written
down to add clarity and dimension. And third, when you take action towards
its achievement.
– Gary Ryan Blair
SET GOALS. They give you direction, hope, and great satisfaction
when you achieve them.
– Author Unknown
The more goals you set - the more goals you get.
– Mark Victor Hansen
To be come fully alive a person must have goals and aims that transcend
himself.
– Herbert A. Otto
Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and
win big success.
– David J. Schwartz
Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.
– Anthony Robbins
Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but
simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.
– Elbert Hubbard
Your goals are the road maps that guide you and show you what
is possible for your life.
– Les Brown
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.
– Orison Swett Marden
The most important thing you can do to achieve your goals is to make sure
that as soon as you set them, you immediately begin to create momentum.
The most important rules that I ever adopted to help me in achieving my goals
were those I learned from a very successful man who taught me to first write
down the goal, and then to never leave the site of setting a goal without first
taking some form of positive action toward its attainment.
– Anthony Robbins
Taking Action
Experience has taught me that there is one chief reason why some people
succeed and others fail. The difference is not one of knowing, but of doing.
The successful man is not so superior in ability as in action. So far as success
can be reduced to a formula, it consists of this: doing what you know you
should do.
– Roger Babson
The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won't work if
you won't.
– Zig Ziglar
An Unfailing Success Plan: At each day's end write down the six most
important things to do tomorrow; number them in order of importance, and
then do them.
– Author Unknown
A great man is the man who does something for the fist time.
– Alexander Smith
No matter how carefully you plan your goals they will never be more
than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.
– W. Clement Stone
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the
most difficult thing in the world.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly
and try another. But above all, try something.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
The best way you can predict your future is to create it.
– Stephen Covey
The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from
the losers.
– Brian Tracy
The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a
man or woman is able to do that counts.
– Booker T. Washington
A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can
do, Nothing else.
– Mahatma Gandhi
You must take action now that will move you towards your goals. Develop a
sense of urgency in your life.
– Les Brown
Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything
you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.
– Jack Canfield
Begin to free yourself at once by doing all that is possible with the means you
have, and as you proceed in this spirit the way will open for you to do more.
– Robert Collier
If you’re proactive, you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to
create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your
own.
– Stephen Covey
Success often comes to those who dare to act. It seldom goes to the timid
who are ever afraid of the consequences.
– Jawaharlal Nehru
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as
simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do
something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today.
– Nolan Bushnell
The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions
show that he knows where he is going.
– Napoleon Hill
When we take big paces to success we leave big spaces for failure.
– Rosie Cash
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they
were to success when they gave up.
– Thomas A. Edison
The man who has done his level best ... is a success, even though
the world may write him down a failure.
– B. C. Forbes
Most successes have been built on failures, not on one failure alone but
several. A majority of the great historic accomplishments of the past have
been the final result of a persistent struggle against discouragement and
failure. A man is never beaten until he thinks he is.
– Charles Gow
Often the difference between a success and a failure is not one's better
abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take the
calculated risk and to act.
– Maxwell Maltz
Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really.
Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of
success. But it isn't all that. You can be discouraged by failure - or you can
learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because,
remember, that's where you will find success.
– Thomas J. Watson
It's good to fail now and again - you learn a lot more out of failure than you do
out of success.
– Author Unknown
The distance from failure to success has never been longer than
the bridge of HOPE.
– Author Unknown
The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right
and doing a thing exactly right.
– Edward Simmons
Unless you're willing to have a go, fail miserably, and have another
go, success won't happen.
– Phillip Adams
The great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed
in five words: "I did not have time."
– Franklin Field
Not many people are willing to give failure a second opportunity. They fail
once and it is all over. The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people
can handle. If you are willing to accept failure and learn from it, if you are
willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you have
got the essential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces.
– Joseph Sugarman
If one asks for success and prepares for failure, one will get the
situation one has prepared for.
– Florence Scovel Shinn
No man ever achieved worthwhile success who did not, at one time
or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink
of failure.
– Napoleon Hill
Most of us look at success in the same positive way. It's how we deal with our
failures that determines what we get out of life.
– Daniel G. Amen
I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually
laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new
level of living I now enjoy.
– Anthony Robbins
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the
surest stepping stones to success.
– Dale Carnegie
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed
of an equal or greater benefit.
– Napoleon Hill
If you aren’t making any mistakes, it’s a sure sign you’re playing it too safe.
– John Maxwell
Be Persistent
Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is
persistence. They're willing to spend more time accomplishing a task
and to persevere in the face of many difficult odds. There's a very
positive relationship between people's ability to accomplish any task
and the time they're willing to spend on it.
– Dr. Joyce Brothers
From the ashes of your failure with persistence will rise powerful success.
– Rosie Cash
Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on
the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a
winning touchdown.
– H. Ross Perot
I have learned that success is to be measured not to much by the position one
has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to
succeed.
– Booker T. Washington
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance
and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for
something and that this thing must be attained.
– Marie Curie
Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on
something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of
anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.
– Charles Kettering
I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind
as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
– John D. Rockefeller
If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being
most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait
of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked
down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, Here comes number
seventy-one!
– Richard M. DeVos
A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the
bricks that others throw at him or her.
– David Brinkley
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm
and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is
compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the
scorching sun. Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to
quit.
– Napoleon Hill
You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.
– Babe Ruth
Consider the postage stamp. It secures success through its ability to stick to
one thing until it gets there.
– Josh Billings
Be Enthusiastic
People rarely succeed unless they are having fun at what they are doing.
– Dale Carnegie
Fall in love with what you are going to do for a living. To be able to get out of
bed and do what you love to do for the rest of the day is beyond words. I'd
rather be a failure in something that I love than be successful in something
that I hate.
– George Burns
Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm
is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the
irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.
– Henry Ford
Enthusiasm releases the drive to carry you over obstacles and adds
significance to all you do.
– Norman Vincent Peale
It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute... that gives
meaning to our lives.
– Anthony Robbins
The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you
help others, the more they will want to help you.
– Brian Tracy
Learn to help people with more than just their jobs; help them with
their lives.
– Jim Rohn
It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to
succeed.
– Napoleon Hill
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: The only ones
among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found
how to serve.
– Albert Schweitzer
A good criterion for measuring success in life is the number of people you
have made happy.
– Robert J. Lumsden
Try to forget yourself in the service of others. For when we think too much of
ourselves and our own interests, we easily become despondent. But when we
work for others, our efforts return to bless us.
– Sidney Powell
The basic rule of free enterprise: You must give in order to get.
– Scott Alexander
You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other
people what they want.
– Zig Ziglar
The more you give of that which is desirable and good the more you get.
– Napoleon Hill
Give to the world the best you have and the best will come back to you.
– Unknown
The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of
receiving.
– Albert Einstein
Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.
– Unknown
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.
– Hadia Bejar
Don't be reluctant to give of yourself generously, it's the mark of caring and
compassion and personal greatness.
– Brian Tracy