β
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
β
β
W.C. Fields
β
The Paradoxical Commandments
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
β
β
Kent M. Keith (The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council)
β
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
β
β
Herman Melville
β
So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ΒΎ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains.
β
β
Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You'll Go!)
β
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
β
β
Theodore Roosevelt
β
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
β
β
Abraham Lincoln
β
Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.
β
β
Francis Chan (Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God)
β
In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
β
β
Bill Cosby
β
Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.
β
β
Neil deGrasse Tyson
β
And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!
β
β
Dr. Seuss
β
I have learned that 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.
β
β
Booker T. Washington (Up from Slavery: An Autobiography)
β
I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.
β
β
Oprah Winfrey
β
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.
β
β
Helen Keller
β
People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
β
β
Dale Carnegie
β
When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.
β
β
Ellen DeGeneres (Seriously... I'm Kidding)
β
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
β
β
Steven Wright
β
To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone.
β
β
Reba McEntire
β
To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.
β
β
Isaac Asimov (Foundation (Foundation, #1))
β
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid - one must also be polite.
β
β
Voltaire
β
What is success?
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch Or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson
β
Life was nothing more than a board game, and only those who realized they were the overlooking players, instead of the pieces on the board, truly succeeded in life and achieved what they desired.
β
β
Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
β
Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today.
β
β
Tim Fargo
β
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
β
β
Henry David Thoreau
β
When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful.
β
β
Eric Thomas (The Secret to Success)
β
My goal, once upon a time, was to succeed. I didnβt realize that success wasnβt grades or scholarships or achievements, but the people I was lucky enough to have in my life.
β
β
Elle Kennedy (The Goal (Off-Campus, #4))
β
Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by "opinions" when you reach DECISIONS, you will not succeed in any undertaking.
β
β
Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
β
I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.
β
β
Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers: The Story of Success)
β
Don't be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed.
β
β
LeBron James (Shooting Stars)
β
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
β
β
Robert Louis Stevenson
β
The bird dares to break the shell, then the shell breaks open and the bird can fly openly. This is the simplest principle of success. You dream, you dare and and you fly.
β
β
Israelmore Ayivor
β
Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, "Make me feel important." Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.
β
β
Mary Kay Ash
β
You have succeeded in life when all you really WANT is only what you really NEED.
β
β
Vernon Howard
β
I never fail. It's just that the people around me succeed more than I.
β
β
Carroll Bryant
β
Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.
β
β
Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within)
β
It's no use saying, "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
β
β
Winston S. Churchill
β
The power behind taking responsibility for your actions lies in putting an end to negative thought patterns. You no longer dwell on what went wrong or focus on whom you are going to blame. You don't waste time building roadblocks to your success. Instead, you are set free and can now focus on succeeding.
β
β
Lorii Myers
β
If you want to give yourself a fair chance to succeed, never expect too much too soon
β
β
Po Bronson
β
Victory is for those who can say "Victory is mine". Success is for those who can begin saying "I will succeed" and say "I have succeeded" in the end.
β
β
Mustafa Kemal AtatΓΌrk
β
Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles one overcomes while trying to succeed
β
β
Booker T. Washington
β
Success in life is not for those who run fast, but for those who keep running and always on the move.
β
β
Bangambiki Habyarimana (Pearls Of Eternity)
β
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
β
β
Kent M. Keith
β
The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve.
Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An
important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative
thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will
change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you
to stay where they are. Friends that don't help you climb will want you to
crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that
don't increase you will eventually decrease you.
Consider this:
Never receive counsel from unproductive people. Never discuss your problems
with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who
never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has
a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the
bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person. Don't follow anyone
who's not going anywhere.
With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it. Be careful
where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is the
person who fortifies his life with the right friendships. If you run with
wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you
will learn how to soar to great heights.
"A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the
kind of friends he chooses."
The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you
closely associate - for the good and the bad.
Note: Be not mistaken. This is applicable to family as well as friends.
Yes...do love, appreciate and be thankful for your family, for they will
always be your family no matter what. Just know that they are human first
and though they are family to you, they may be a friend to someone else and
will fit somewhere in the criteria above.
"In Prosperity Our Friends Know Us. In Adversity We Know Our friends."
"Never make someone a priority when you are only an option for them."
"If you are going to achieve excellence in big things,you develop the habit in little matters.
Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.."..
β
β
Colin Powell
β
We can be truly successful only at something weβre willing to fail at. If weβre unwilling to fail, then weβre unwilling to succeed.
β
β
Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
β
A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.
β
β
Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island)
β
Success is counted sweetest
By those who neβer succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
β
β
Emily Dickinson (The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson)
β
We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.
β
β
JosΓ© Ortega y Gasset
β
The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. Success teaches how to succeed. Begin with the determination to succeed, and the work is half done already.
β
β
Henry Ford
β
If at first you donβt succeed, youβre doing it wrong. Learn from the experience. Try again, but with a different approach.
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
β
β
John D. Rockefeller
β
When you have failed at being nice, youβve actually succeeded in being mean. Success is everywhere if you know where to look for it.
β
β
Katina Bertrand-Ferguson
β
The most self-damaging words in the English language are: try, might, and if. These are words of uncertainty. Will you fail? That is possible. But continue doubting your abilities and youβll never succeed.
β
β
Dannika Dark (Gravity (Mageri, #4; Mageriverse #4))
β
Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung...We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all playβand by βweβ I mean societyβin determining who makes it and who doesnβt.
β
β
Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers: The Story of Success)
β
Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be sure that I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had nothing to do with success...whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.
β
β
Bernhard Schlink (The Reader)
β
The best way to succeed is to have a specific Intent, a clear Vision, a plan of Action, and the ability to maintain Clarity. Those are the Four Pillars of Success. It never fails!
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
No one succeeds without effort... Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance.
β
β
Ramana Maharshi
β
What do you think will be more effective when it comes to succeeding, believing you can or KNOWING you will? Let today be the last day you took timid steps of belief and start taking confident steps of purpose-driven knowing!
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
If one is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
β
β
Carlos Castaneda (Tales of Power)
β
If life didnβt give you at least one person not wanting you to succeed then half of us would lose are motivation to climb that cliff, in order to prove them wrong.
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
Some people will insult your intelligence by suddenly being nice or nicer to you once you make it β¦ or they think you have.
β
β
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
β
of course i want to be successful
but i don't crave success for me
i need to be successful to gain
enough milk and honey
to help those around
me succeed
β
β
Rupi Kaur (milk and honey)
β
Writing is really just a matter of writing a lot, writing consistently and having faith that you'll continue to get better and better. Sometimes, people think that if they don't display great talent and have some success right away, they won't succeed. But writing is about struggling through and learning and finding out what it is about writing itself that you really love.
β
β
Laura Kasischke
β
I just wanted to say that it's okay if you dislike me. If you make Clary happy, I'm fine with you." He stuck his hand out, and Jace took his own hand out of Clary's and shook Simon's, a bemused look on his face.
"I don't dislike you," he said. "In fact, because I actually do like you, I'm going to offer you some advice."
"Advice?" Simon looked wary.
"I see that you are working this vampire angle with some success," Jace said, indicating Isabelle and Maia with a nod of his head. "And kudos. Lots of girls love that sensitive-undead thing. But I'd drop the whole musician angle if I were you. Vampire rock stars are played out, and besides, you can't possibly be very good."
Simon sighed. "I don't suppose there's any change you could reconsider the part where you didn't like me?"
"Enough, both of you," Clary said. "You can't be complete jerks to each other forever, you know."
"Technically," said Simon, "I can."
Jace made an inelegant noise; after a moment Clary realized that he was trying not to laugh, and only semi-succeeding.
Simon grinned. "Got you."
"Well," Clary said. "This is a beautiful moment.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
Our work, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time. While no single conversation is guaranteed to transform a company, a relationship, or a life, any single conversation can. Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person. It could be. Participate as if it matters. It does.
β
β
Susan Scott (Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time)
β
As a board, you want to be able to identify exactly what the company is succeeding at and exactly what it's failing at so that you can amplify the successes and correct the failures with surgical precision.
β
β
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance)
β
If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.
β
β
David Brent
β
As a board, you want to be able to identify exactly what the company is succeeding at and exactly what it's failing at so that you can amplify success and correct failure with surgical precision.
β
β
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance)
β
If you want to succeed and leave your competitors behind, you need great plans and even greater strategies.
β
β
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
β
You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.
β
β
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
β
Rich will be my life if I
can keep my memories full
and brimming, and record
them on clear-eyed
mornings while I set
joyously to work setting
pen to holy craft.
β
β
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
β
The lesson of Buffett was: To succeed in a spectacular fashion you had to be spectacularly unusual.
β
β
Michael Lewis
β
God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though--and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed.
β
β
David Foster Wallace
β
The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
β
β
Montesquieu
β
When we fail, our pride supports us, and when we succeed it betrays us.
β
β
Charles Colton
β
I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.
β
β
Og Mandino
β
Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
[Letter to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822 - Writings 9:100--103]
β
β
James Madison (Writings)
β
It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
The true measure of a man is not what he dreams, but what he aspires to be; a dream is nothing without action. Whether one fails or succeeds is irrelevant; all that matters is that there was motion in his life. That alone affects the world.
β
β
Mike Norton (White Mountain)
β
The success of a strategy largely depends on it's implementation. You can have a good strategy, you can have a winning game plan, but ultimately you and your team have to implement the strategy and execute and put the game plan into action if your business is going to succeed.
β
β
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
β
Don't miss out on the love of a good women,son. No matter what that old man of yours tells you,love is real.I'd have never had the success in my life without the women right there.She's been my backbone.She's been my reason for everything I've ever done.One day your drive to make a name for yourself will begin to drift away. It won't be that important anymore.But when you're doing it for someone else, someone you would move heaven and earth for then you never lose the desire to succeed.I can't imagine this world without her in it.I don't ever want to.
β
β
Abbi Glines (Twisted Perfection (Rosemary Beach, #5; Perfection, #1))
β
You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly, and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear.
β
β
Gregory Boyle (Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion)
β
Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes [of the various societies' histories] towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.
β
β
Jared Diamond (Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed)
β
We may insist as often as we like that man's intellect is powerless in comparison to his instinctual life, and we may be right in this. Nevertheless, there is something peculiar about this weakness. The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it will not rest until it has gained a hearing. Finally, after a countless succession of rebuffs, it succeeds.
β
β
Sigmund Freud (The Future of an Illusion)
β
I am simultaneously and contradictorily both happy and unhappy: 'to succeed' or 'to fail' have for me only ephemeral, contingent meanings (this does not stop my desires and sorrows from being violent ones); what impels me, secretly and obstinately, is not tactical: I accept and I affirm, irrespective of the true and the false, of success and failure; I am withdrawn from all finality, I live according to chance...
β
β
Roland Barthes
β
It is better to travel with hope in one's heart than to arrive in safety. . . . We should celebrate today's failure because it is a clear sign that our voyage of discovery is not yet over. The day the experiment succeeds is the day the experiment ends. And I inevitably find that the sadness of ending outweighs the celebration of success.
β
β
Jacqueline Kelly (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Calpurnia Tate, #1))
β
Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job."
Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.
Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.
β
β
Jodi Picoult (House Rules)
β
Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism.
Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, physically healthy, and not bankrupted in middle age by the illness of a spouse.
β
β
Sam Harris (Free Will)
β
Scholars have argued that without humanism the Reformation could not have succeeded, and it is certainly difficult to imagine the Reformation occurring without the knowledge of languages, the critical handling of sources, the satirical attacks on clerics and scholastics, and the new national feeling that a generation of humanists provided. On the other hand, the long-term success of the humanists owed something to the Reformation. In Protestant schools and universities classical culture found a permanent home. The humanist curriculum, with its stress on languages and history, became a lasting model for the arts curriculum.
β
β
Steven E. Ozment (The Age of Reform 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe)
β
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road youβre trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but donβt you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Donβt give up though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victorβs cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when youβre hardest hit-
Itβs when things seem worst that you must not quit
β
β
Edgar A. Guest
β
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God. It was never between you and them anyway.
β
β
Mother Teresa
β
The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievements in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It's not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.
β
β
Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers: The Story of Success)
β
A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don't sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, its a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal. If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or set new goals and reenter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure. All I'm suggesting is that thinking of goals and systems as very different concepts has power. Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good everytime they apply their system. That's a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.
β
β
Scott Adams (How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life)
β
Rachel and I, weβd been raised to do what we wanted to do, and we had; weβd been successful, and weβd shown everyone. We didnβt need to wear apocryphal T-shirts because we already knew the secret, which was this: that when you did succeed, when you did outearn and outpace, when you did exceed all expectations, nothing around you really shifted. You still had to tiptoe around the fragility of a man, which was okay for the women who got to shop and drink martinis all dayβthis was their compensation; they had done their own negotiationsβbut was absolutely intolerable for anyone who was out there working and getting respect and becoming the person that others had to tiptoe around. That these men could be so delicate, that they could lack any inkling of self-examination when it came time to try to figure out why their women didnβt seem to be batshit enthusiastic over another night of bolstering and patting and fellating every insecurity out of themβthis was the thing weβd find intolerable.
β
β
Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Fleishman Is in Trouble)
β
Women are genuinely trapped at the intersection of capitalism and patriarchyβtwo systems that, at their extremes, ensure that individual success comes at the expense of collective morality. And yet there is enormous pleasure in individual success. It can feel like license and agency to approach an ideal, to find yourselfβin a good picture, on your wedding day, in a flash of identical movementβexemplifying a prototype. There are rewards for succeeding under capitalism and patriarchy; there are rewards even for being willing to work on its terms. There are nothing but rewards, at the surface level. The trap looks beautiful. Itβs well-lit. It welcomes you in.
β
β
Jia Tolentino (Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion)
β
The cord that tethers ability to success is both loose and elastic. It is easy to see fine qualities in successful books or to see unpublished manuscripts, inexpensive vodkas, or people struggling in any field as somehow lacking. It is easy to believe that ideas that worked were good ideas, that plans that succeeded were well designed, and that ideas and plans that did not were ill conceived. And it is easy to make heroes out of the most successful and to glance with disdain at the least. But ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equationβthe role of chanceβ¦What Iβve learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized.
β
β
Leonard Mlodinow (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives)
β
Mother Teresa's Anyway Poem
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta.
β
β
Mother Teresa
β
Another key commitment for succeeding with this strategy is to support your commitment to shutting down with a strict shutdown ritual that you use at the end of the workday to maximize the probability that you succeed. In more detail, this ritual should ensure that every incomplete task, goal, or project has been reviewed and that for each you have confirmed that either (1) you have a plan you trust for its completion, or (2) itβs captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right. The process should be an algorithm: a series of steps you always conduct, one after another. When youβre done, have a set phrase you say that indicates completion (to end my own ritual, I say, βShutdown completeβ). This final step sounds cheesy, but it provides a simple cue to your mind that itβs safe to release work-related thoughts for the rest of the day.
β
β
Cal Newport (Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World)
β
In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve?
The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success.
Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business.
When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic.
Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward.
Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience.
Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside.
Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?
Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem.
Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living.
Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.
Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new.
The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure β and actually fail β the greater your chances of success.
If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve.
The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get.
Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action.
The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying?
Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline.
Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence.
Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might.
If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail.
The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface.
Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.
β
β
John C. Maxwell (Failing Forward)
β
Wisdom is really the key to wealth. With great wisdom, comes great wealth and success. Rather than pursuing wealth, pursue wisdom. The aggressive pursuit of wealth can lead to disappointment.
Wisdom is defined as the quality of having experience, and being able to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting. Wisdom is basically the practical application of knowledge.
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.
Become completely focused on one subject and study the subject for a long period of time. Don't skip around from one subject to the next.
The problem is generally not money. Jesus taught that the problem was attachment to possessions and dependence on money rather than dependence on God.
Those who love people, acquire wealth so they can give generously. After all, money feeds, shelters, and clothes people.
They key is to work extremely hard for a short period of time (1-5 years), create abundant wealth, and then make money work hard for you through wise investments that yield a passive income for life.
Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand.
Failure is success if we learn from it. Continuing failure eventually leads to success. Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
Whenever you pursue a goal, it should be with complete focus. This means no interruptions.
Only when one loves his career and is skilled at it can he truly succeed.
Never rush into an investment without prior research and deliberation.
With preferred shares, investors are guaranteed a dividend forever, while common stocks have variable dividends.
Some regions with very low or no income taxes include the following: Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Delaware, South Dakota, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Panama, San Marino, Seychelles, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Curaçao, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Monaco, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bermuda, Kuwait, Oman, Andorra, Cayman Islands, Belize, Vanuatu, and Campione d'Italia.
There is only one God who is infinite and supreme above all things. Do not replace that infinite one with finite idols. As frustrated as you may feel due to your life circumstances, do not vent it by cursing God or unnecessarily uttering his name.
Greed leads to poverty. Greed inclines people to act impulsively in hopes of gaining more.
The benefit of giving to the poor is so great that a beggar is actually doing the giver a favor by allowing the person to give. The more I give away, the more that comes back.
Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. Give as much as you can.
β
β
H.W. Charles (The Money Code: Become a Millionaire With the Ancient Jewish Code)
β
Bold prayers honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God isnβt offended by your biggest dreams or boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers arenβt impossible to you, they are insulting to God.
Prayers are prophecies. They are the best predictors of your spiritual future. Who you become is determined by how you pray. Ultimately, the transcript of your prayers becomes the script of your life.
The greatest tragedy in life is the prayers that go unanswered because they go unasked.
God does not answer vague prayers. The more specific your prayers are, the more glory God receives.
Most of us donβt get what we want because we quit praying. We give up too easily. We give up too soon. We quit praying right before the miracle happens.
If you donβt take the risk, you forfeit the miracle.
Take a step of faith when God gives you a vision because you trust that the One who gave you the vision is going to make provision. And for the record, if the vision is from God, it will most definitely be beyond your means.
We shouldnβt seek answers as much as we should seek God. If you seek answers you wonβt find them, but if you seek God, the answers will find you.
If your plans arenβt birthed in prayer and bathed in prayer, they wonβt succeed.
Are your problems bigger than God, or is God bigger than your problems? Our biggest problem is our small view of God. That is the cause of all lesser evils. And itβs a high view of God that is the solution to all other problems.
Because you know He can, you can pray with holy confidence.
Persistence is the magic bullet. The only way you can fail is if you stop praying. 100 percent of the prayers I donβt pray wonβt get answered.
Where are you most proficient, most sufficient? Maybe that is precisely where God wants you to trust Him to do something beyond your ability.
What we perceive as unanswered prayers are often the greatest answers. Our heavenly Father is far too wise and loves us far too much to give us everything we ask for. Someday weβll thank God for the prayers He didnβt answer as much or more than the ones He did.
You canβt pray for open doors if you arenβt willing accept closed doors, because one leads to the other.
Just as our greatest successes often come on the heels of our greatest failures, our greatest answers often come on the heels of our longest and most boring prayers.
The biggest difference between success and failure, both spiritually and occupationally, is your waking-up time on your alarm clock. We wonβt remember the things that came easy; weβll remember the things that came hard.
Itβs not just where you end up thatβs important; itβs how you get there. Goal setting begins and ends with prayer.
The more you have to circle something in prayer, the more satisfying it is spiritually. And, often, the more glory God gets.
I donβt want easy answers or quick answers because I have a tendency to mishandle the blessings that come too easily or too quickly. I take the credit or take them for granted. So now I pray that it will take long enough and be hard enough for God to receive all of the glory. Change your prayer approach from as soon as possible to as long as it takes.
Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.
β
β
Mark Batterson (The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears)
β
In 1924, Nikola Tesla was asked why he never married?
His answer was this:
"I had always thought of woman as possessing those delicate qualities of mind and soul that made her in her respects far superior to man. I had put her on a lofty pedestal, figuratively speaking, and ranked her in certain important attributes considerably higher than man. I worshipped at the feet of the creature I had raised to this height, and, like every true worshiper, I felt myself unworthy of the object of my worship.
But all this was in the past. Now the soft voiced gentle woman of my reverent worship has all but vanished. In her place has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies on making herself as much as possible like man - in dress, voice, and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind. The world has experience many tragedies, but to my mind the greatest tragedy of all is the present economic condition wherein women strive against men, and in many cases actually succeed in usurping their places in the professions and in industry. This growing tendency of women to overshadow the masculine is a sign of a deteriorating civilization.
Practically all the great achievements of man until now have been inspired by his love and devotion to woman. Man has aspired to great things because some woman believed in him, because he wished to command her admiration and respect. For these reasons he has fought for her and risked his life and his all for her time and time again.
Perhaps the male in society is useless. I am frank to admit that I don't know. If women are beginning to feel this way about it - and there is striking evidence at hand that they do - then we are entering upon the cruelest period of the world's history.
Our civilization will sink to a state like that which is found among the bees, ants, and other insects - a state wherein the male is ruthlessly killed off. In this matriarchal empire which will be established, the female rules. As the female predominates, the males are at her mercy. The male is considered important only as a factor in the general scheme of the continuity of life.
The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me."
Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, page 23. August 10, 1924.
β
β
Nikola Tesla