Orison Swett Marden Quotes

“And above all, study, study, study! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard student.”

“Columbus was carried back to Spain in chains, and a pickle dealer of Seville, who never rose above the position of mate of a schooner, gave his name to the world Columbus had discovered.”

“Fortune always smiles on those who roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the wheel.”

“Habit works powerfully for or against us. It is a good servant, but a tyrannical master.”

“I've never found any elevators in life; I've had to climb to every place worth reaching.

And now I think it over, I wish it so with everybody, for then no one would rise any higher than he deserves to go.”

“If a man is not superior to his education, is not larger than his crutches or his helps, if he is not greater than the means of his culture, which are but the sign-boards pointing the way to success, he will never reach greatness.”

“It is difficult to estimate the influence upon a life of the early formed habit of doing everything to a finish, not leaving it half done, or pretty nearly done, but completely done.

Nature completes every little leaf, even every little rib, its edges and stern, as exactly and perfectly as though it were the only leaf to be made that year.

Even the flower that blooms in the mountain dell, where no human eye will ever behold it, is made with the same perfection and exactness of form and outline, with the same delicate shade of color, with the same completeness of beauty, as though it were intended for royalty in the queen's garden.”

“Luck is waiting for something to turn up; labor, with keen eye and strong will, will turn something up.

Luck lies in bed and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy; labor turns out at six o'clock, and, with busy pen or ringing hammer, lays a foundation for a competence.

Luck whines; labor whistles. Luck relies on charms; labor depends on character. Luck slips down to indigence; labor strides upward to independence.”

“No man can be great who allows himself to get angry.”

“Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed – pay the price and it is yours.”

“We can have little faith in the youth who is always crying out against his condition, and telling an incredulous world what great things he could do if his lot were different.”

“What is enthusiasm but a passionate belief in what seems to be a high and holy aim — an unselfish devotion to some noble cause — a consecration of heart and mind and soul to the attainment of a great object?

What is it but an earnest effort to attain the heights of spiritual and intellectual endeavor? What is it but the life, the force, the power, which makes individuals or nations capable of enduring much and waiting long, in the conviction that ultimately the thing they have at heart will be accomplished?”