Success quotes

The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That - with the squalid interpretation put on the word success - is our national disease. ~William James, 11 September 1906


The closer one gets to the top, the more one finds there is no "top." ~Nancy Barcus


Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility, and commitment. ~Ross Perot


What will matter is not your success but your significance.... ~Michael Josephson, from "What Will Matter" (poem), 2003, whatwillmatter.com


Smarts and action are on the same side of the equation where the sum is success. ~Garrett Hazel


Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it.... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching. ~Tennessee Williams


Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. ~William Feather


There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. ~Christopher Morley


How do you achieve success? Well, for one thing, you don't define it before you achieve it. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. ~Irving Berlin


Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure. ~Earl Wilson


Success will never be a big step in the future, success is a small step taken just now. ~Jonatan Mårtensson


Some people succeed because they are destined to, but most people succeed because they are determined to. ~Author Unknown


Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. ~Dale Carnegie


Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing. ~Abraham Lincoln


Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. ~Dale Carnegie


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. ~Booker T. Washington


Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. ~George Smith Patton


It is wise to keep in mind that no success or failure is necessarily final. ~Author Unknown


How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten? ~Logan Smith


Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companions - the hero and the sidekick. ~Laurence Shames


The man who has done his level best, and who is conscious that he has done his best, is a success, even though the world may write him down as a failure. ~B.C. Forbes


Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction. ~Al Bernstein


The road to success is wherever people need another road. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you. ~Arthur McAuliff (Thanks, Fernanda)


If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style. ~Quentin Crisp


If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. ~Author Unknown


If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There's no use in being a damn fool about it. ~W.C. Fields


If at first you do succeed - try to hide your astonishment. ~Author Unknown


As you climb the ladder of success, be sure it's leaning against the right building. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.


If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average. ~M.H. Alderson


Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill


What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins. ~Gene Fowler


We never know, believe me, when we have succeeded best. ~Miguel de Unamuno, Essays and Soliloquies, 1925


Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. ~Lily Tomlin


I couldn't wait for success... so I went ahead without it. ~Jonathan Winters


There is no point at which you can say, "Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap." ~Carrie Fisher


Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally. ~David Frost


Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it. ~Author Unknown


He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction. ~Bessie Stanley, 1905, commonly misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson


Try to discover
The road to success
And you'll seek but never find,
But blaze your own path
And the road to success
Will trail right behind.
~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book


I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. ~George Bernard Shaw, 28 August 1896


Those who have succeeded at anything and don't mention luck are kidding themselves. ~Larry King


Success has made failures of many men. ~Cindy Adams


Some aspects of success seem rather silly as death approaches. ~Donald A. Miller


Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. ~Author Unknown


That man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had. ~Robert Louis Stevenson