Orison Swett Marden Quotes

“Fun is the cheapest and best medicine in the world for your children as well as for yourself. Give it to them in good large doses.

It will not only save you doctors' bills, but it will also help to make your children happier, and will improve their chances in life.”

“Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible.”

“How many people delay the kindness, the expression of love, until the person is dead, beyond their reach, and then try to atone for a neglected past by flowers and tears at the funeral!”

“If he would only burst his self-imposed shackles, get out of himself, break away from the narrow bounds of his sickly, limited thought, he could be a power in the world.”

“If you have not what you like, like what you have until you can change your environment. Do not waste your vitality in hating your life; find something in it which is worth liking and enjoying, while you keep steadily at work to make it what you desire.

Be happy over something, every day, for the brain is a thing of habit, and you cannot teach it to be happy in a moment, if you allow it to be miserable for years.”

“It is said that long livers are great hopers. If you keep your hope bright in spite of discouragements, and meet all difficulties with a cheerful face, it will be very difficult for age to trace its furrows on your brow. There is longevity in cheerfulness.”

“One of the worst doctrines ever set afloat is that real happiness is in material things instead of in a condition of mind.”

“Our eyes are so focused upon the future, upon some goal in the beyond, that we do not see the beauties and the glories all about us. Our eyes are not focused for the things near us, but those far away.

We get so accustomed to living in our imagination and anticipation that we lose much of our power of enjoying the here and the now. We are living for tomorrow, and yet, when tomorrow comes it still will be tomorrow!”

“Real happiness comes from the cultivation, the development, of the highest that is in us.”

“Remember that there is something else in the world even more important than making money. Your health, your family, your friendships should mean a thousand times more to you than dollarchasing.

Life was given us for enjoyment, not for one long, strenuous, straining struggle in the dreary drudgery of scraping dollars together.”

“Robust health and optimism produce happiness. The power of a sunny soul to transform the most trying situations in life is beyond all power to compute.

The world loves the sunny soul, the man who carries his holidays in his eye and his sunshine with him. The determination to be kind and helpful to every one, to be cheerful, no matter what comes to us, is a great happiness producer.”

“The great mass of people do not extract ten per cent, of the happiness possible in their everyday life, largely because they were never trained to think of the normal sources of enjoyment.

Their minds are blank, except for the little grooves which their daily routine has stamped in their brain tissue.”

“The habit of learning to appreciate to the utmost every situation in life adds wonderfully to the sum total of one's happiness.

But many people are incapable of real happiness because they never learn to appreciate anything except that which appeals to their own comfort, pleasure, or appetite.”

“The human machine is the only medium by which the soul and the mind connect with the material world, and this marvelous mechanism, this temple Beautiful, should be kept in the superbest condition, for whatever mars it mars the soul's expression.

In our present system of education we are taught nearly everything except the very thing that we ought to know most about – the art of living. The schools and colleges teach scores of things that we never use directly in practical life.”

“The human mind is happiest when it is most active in performing the functions which it was intended to perform. One of man's greatest passions is that of achievement, the passion for doing things, the ambition to accomplish.

This is one of the greatest satisfactions of life, and satisfaction is the chief ingredient in happiness.”

“The majority of people carry in their minds and in their hearts, grudges, jealousy, envy, antipathies, prejudices, which, although not very pronounced in their expression, are festering within and poisoning the inner life.”

“The only way to be happy is to take advantage of the little opportunities that come to us to brighten life as we go along.

To postpone enjoyment day after day and year after year, until we get more money or a better position, is to cheat ourselves not only of present enjoyment, but also of the power to enjoy in the future.

One of the greatest tragedies of life is the postponement of enjoyment.”

“The power of material things, to bestow happiness, to bring joy into the life is tremendously exaggerated. The right mental attitude, the trained mind, will bring to us the best there is in the universe.”

“The sight of other people's prosperity seems to kill their appreciation and the enjoyment of their possessions. To be happy, we must approve of ourselves; and there is something within us which always condemns the selfish act, as it does the sinful act.

I have never known a greedy, grasping, selfish person to be happy. Where these propensities dominate in the nature, it is impossible for the things which create love to live. These rank, vulgar weeds kill the more tender plants and flowers which radiate sweetness and beauty, contentment and happiness.”

“The trouble with us is that we try to find happiness where it does not exist, in transient, impermanent things. We try to find it in the gratification of desire; we seek it in animal pleasure.

Happiness lives in giving, in doing, not in getting, in grasping.”

“The world is a looking-glass which flings back to us the reflection of ourselves.

If we laugh it laughs back at us. If we shed tears, it reflects a sorrowful face.”

“We can so educate the will power that it will focus the thoughts upon the bright side of things, and upon objects which elevate the soul, thus forming a habit of happiness and goodness which will enrich the whole life.

The habit of making the best of everything and of always looking on the bright side is a fortune in itself.”

“We were made to dominate our environment. It was not intended that we should be buffeted about by accident or chance.

Our greatest enemies live in our own brains, in our imaginations, in our wrong ideas of life.

We were intended to be conquerors instead of slaves and there is no slavery like the slavery to a conviction or a superstition that makes us cowards.”

“Where did the idea come from that we should take life so seriously, anyway? Why should a man be such a slave to his breadwinning?

We ought to be able to get a good living, even to make fortunes, and yet have a good time every day of our lives. This idea of being a slave most of the time, and of only occasionally enjoying a holiday, is all wrong.”

“Whether it is an engine or a human brain — exercise or deteriorate is the law of life.”

“Why do we allow anticipated joys to blind us to those that are close by.”

“Why do we allow the mirage of tomorrow to keep our eyes from the beauties of today?”