Orison
Swett Marden
Orison Swett
Marden is considered to be the founder of the modern success
movement in America. Marden's first book, Pushing to the
Front, was published in 1894.
In 1897 he founded Success
Magazine, which reached the enormous circulation,
for that
time, of nearly a half-million. His book titles express
eloquently the outlook
of cheerful optimism and confidence. At his
death it was said of him that he averaged
two books a year, and
had some two million words in as yet unpublished manuscripts when
he died.
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thinkers home
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The universe is one great kindergarten for us.
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 the soul of humans.
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The Creator has not
given you a longing to do
that which you have no ability to do.
Our thoughts and imagination are the
only real limits to our possibilities.
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.
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Every experience in life, everything with which we
have
come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting
away at
our life statue, molding, modifying, shaping it.
We are part of
all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt or thought
has had its hand in molding us,
shaping us.
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Your expectations open or close 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.
We fail to see that we can
control our own destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible;
make ourselves become whatever we long to be.
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You cannot measure people by their
failures. You must know what
use they make of them. What did
they mean to them?
What did they get out of them? |
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We must give more in order to get
more.
It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the
generous harvest. |
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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. |
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To many a person, and sometimes to a
youth, there comes
the opportunity to choose between honorable
competence
and tainted wealth. The young person who starts out to
be
poor and honorable, holds in his or her hand one of
the strongest
elements of success. |
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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. |
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What power can poverty have over a
home where loving hearts
are beating with a consciousness of untold
riches of the head and heart? |
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The waste of life occasioned by trying
to do
too many things at once is appalling. |
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There is no stimulus like that
which comes from the consciousness of knowing that others
believe in us.
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There is no medicine like
hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as
expectation of something tomorrow. |
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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. |
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The quality of your work, in the
long run, is the deciding factor
on how much your services are valued by
the world. |
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There is an infinite difference
between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the
best, between mediocrity and superiority...
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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. |
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The greatest thing a person can do
in this world is
to make the most possible out of the stuff
that has
been given him or her.
This is success, and there is no other. |
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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. |
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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.
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Wisdom is knowledge which
has become a part of one's being. |
We make the world we live
in and shape our own environment. |
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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. |
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Many
people have finally succeeded
only because they
have failed after repeated efforts. If they had never
met defeat they would never have known any great victory. |
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Joyfulness keeps the heart and face
young.
A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and
everybody around us. |
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It is what we do easily and what we
like to do that we do well. |
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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.
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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. |
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Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes
through your
hands. Stamp it with your humanity. Let superiority be your
trademark.
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Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to
make
the most possible out of the stuff that is in him or her.
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Deep within us dwell those slumbering powers; powers
that would astonish us, that we never dreamed of possessing;
forces that
would revolutionize our lives if aroused and put into action.
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Be larger than your task.
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Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what
you
have is a necessary ingredient of a career.
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Strong, successful people are not the victims of
their environment.
They create favorable conditions. Their
own inherent force
and energy compel things to turn out as they desire.
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A will finds a way.
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All people who have achieved great
things have been great dreamers.
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