Top Quotes about Success

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.Thomas Edison, This is presented as a statement of 1877.

Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.Pablo Picasso, Vogue (November 1, 1956)

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.Albert Camus, The Fall (1956)

Success is the child of Audacity.Benjamin Disraeli, The Rise of Iskander (1832)

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1951)

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.
(Also known as: Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.)Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Strength and success – they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it.John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)

What is success? It is an inner, an indescribable force, resourcefulness, power of vision; a consciousness that I am, by my mere existence, exerting pressure on the movement of life about me.Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks (1901)

Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons (1928)

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.Bill Gates, The Road Ahead (1995), Page 35

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal.Earl Nightingale, Earl Nightingale's Greatest Discovery (1987), Page 111

What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins.Gene Fowler, Skyline: A Reporter's Reminiscence of the 1920s (1961)

Success is a consequence and must not be an end.Gustave Flaubert, Letter to George Sand (1876)

Success has always been the greatest liar.Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

If you have a success, you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.Ernest Hemingway, As quoted in That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan (1963), Page 108

Success always demands a greater effort.Winston Churchill, To Robert Menzies Prime Minister of Australia (December 13, 1940), Their Finest Hour (1949), Page 613

Success is like a shy mouse – he won’t come out while you’re watching.Tennessee Williams, Letter to Donald Windham (April 1943)

Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.T. S. Eliot, The Family Reunion (1939)

If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848)

Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.Vince Lombardi, Interview in Esquire (November 1962) (More info)

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.Michael Jordan, As quoted in Nike Culture: The Sign of the Swoosh by Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson (1998), Page 49

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.Henry David Thoreau, The Journal (March 11, 1859)

You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.Winston Churchill, (February 19, 1900), South Africa, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900)

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.Albert Einstein, Death of a Genius, in Life Magazine (May 2, 1955)

It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what – you’re attempting can’t be done. Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites (1987)

If you think you’re a success, you will be a success; if you think you deserve nothing but crap, you’ll get nothing but crap. Your inner reality shapes your outer one, every day of your life.Tana French, Broken Harbour (2012)

There is only one success, to be able to spend your life in your own way.Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins (1922), Page 90

A thousand-mile journey starts from your feet down there.Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (6th century BC)

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901), Page 39

Success is not something you achieve, conquer, climb, or complete. Success is a process; it’s a way of life.Anthony Tony Robbins, Unlimited Power: A Black Choice (1997), Page 371

The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers (1844)

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.Helen Keller, To the New College Girl, in Youth's Companion (June 8, 1905)

Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed. To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need.Emily Dickinson, Poem 67: Success is counted sweetest

Showing up is 80 percent of life.Woody Allen, He's Woody Allen's 1‐1‐Silent Partner by Susan Braudy, New York Times, (August 21, 1977)

The real opportunity for success lies within the person and not in the job.Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top (1975), Page 24

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.Colin Powell, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell by Oren Harari (2003), Page 164

If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y and z is keeping your mouth shut.Albert Einstein, Said to Samuel J. Woolf, Berlin (Summer 1929). Published in the New York Times (August 18, 1929)

In all things success depends on previous preparation, and without such previous preparation there is sure to be failure.Confucius, The Doctrine of the Mean

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.John C. Maxwell, Make Today Count: The Secret of Your Success Is Determined by Your Daily Agenda (2008)

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876)

Arrange your ideas. Be methodical. Be orderly. There is the secret of success.Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links (1923)

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.Mark Twain, Letter to Cordelia Welsh Foote of Cincinnati (December 2, 1887)

To be successful, you need friends. To be very successful, you need enemies.Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight (1973)