Success Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Don't take 'no' for an answer, never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes, but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or events.

Winston Churchill

The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.

Henry David Thoreau

No power of genius has ever yet had the smallest success in explaining existence. The perfect enigma remains.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yet one more item is needed to complete success, and that is the rendering of service to others in the community. Without this the mere satisfaction of selfish desire does not reach the top notch.

Robert Baden-Powell

I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can't be made to do it in any possible way.

Success definitely brings on loneliness. People think you're lucky, that you have everything. They think you can go anywhere and do anything, but that's not the point. One hungers for the basic stuff.

Michael Jackson

I should consider it a greater success to interest one wise and earnest soul, than a million unwise and frivolous.

Henry David Thoreau

In England, success in the profession of the law leads to some very great objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to easy fortunes, have ever in this country been emminent in that profession?

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Henry David Thoreau

At the beginning of a campaign it is important to consider whether or not to move forward; but when one has taken the offensive it is necessary to maintain it to the last extremity. However skilfully effected a retreat may be, it always lessens the morale of an army, since in losing the chances of success, they are remitted to the enemy. A retreat, moreover, costs much more in men and materials than the bloodiest engagements, with this difference, also, that in a battle the enemy loses practically as much as you do; while in a retreat you lose and he does not.

Napoleon I of France

Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.

A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, I think, as I have observed it to be considered since. I have known it very fashionable indeed. I have seen it displayed with such success, that I have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars.

Charles Dickens

The best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.

Albert Einstein

I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It is the ultimate source of success in life.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

If you take stands in any way and people feel that you have any success in - a following, why those who disagree with you are going to feel very strongly about it.

Eleanor Roosevelt

I've seen people that are extremely brilliant and they don't have the staying power. They don't have that never-give-up quality. I've always said that other than bad ideas, which is a reason for failure, the ability to never ever quit or give up is something that is very, very important for success as an entrepreneur.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

Theodore Roosevelt

I shall take my present leave-but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication [prayer] that...His Divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in...the wise measures on which the success of this government must depend.

George Washington

Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one's world.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

And I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and P. R. and public opinion.

This week I've been reading a lot and doing little work. That's the way things ought to be. That's surely the road to success.

The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.

Edgar Allan Poe

You will say that I am not a success — vaincre or être vaincu, [to conquer or to be conquered], it doesn't matter to me, one has feeling and movement in any event, and they are more akin than they may seem to be or than can be put into words.

Vincent van Gogh