Selected success quotes

1. Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.

2. Nothing fails like success.

3. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

4. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

7. Happiness... it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

8. I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.

9. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

10. You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

11. I believe that Providence would never have allowed us to see the victory of the Movement if it had the intention after all to destroy us at the end.

12. I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright.

13. Our success or failure is not in the hands of our leaders. It is in our hands.

14. Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

15. Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

16. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.

17. There is a woman at the begining of all great things.

18. It's nice to be important, but it's important to always be nice.

19. However impenetrable it seems, if you don't try it, then you can never do it.

20. Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.

21. When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with so excellent a disposition.

22. You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

23. If you do not believe you can do it then you have no chance at all.

24. My play was a complete success. The audience was a failure.

25. Even when I'm happy and successful, life still goes on.

26. Not even a great leader can get very far without great people to lead.

27. Take heart! Many great things have been done by people in poor mental health.

28. If I do enough different things in enough different ways, I may, eventually, do something right.

29. The surest way to remain a winner is to win once, and then not play any more.

30. My success lies in having achieved a record numbers of failures.

31. I never thought I'd land in pictures with a face like mine.

32. I probably hold the distinction of being one movie star who, by all laws of logic, should never have made it. At each stage of my career, I lacked the experience.

33. Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you're exactly the same.

34. Winning is the most important. Everything is consequence of that.

35. The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.

36. Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

37. If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

38. Why be a man when you can be a success?

39. I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.

40. I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

41. It is always hard to hear people say such nice things about us, because quite honestly I feel very privileged and honored to be of service in any way I can. I think that is my mission here on earth in some way -- whether it is entertaining people or trying to help in whatever way I can. So [the attention and acclaim] is pretty embarrassing to me.

42. Gloria Estefan was a huge influence for me. Of course, she was one of the few Latina women around who had this major international success. She sang in Spanish and English, and she was very much the sort of woman I recognised from my culture. I go to her home, and I think that she is a woman who has got it just right. She has her music, she has her family, she has her relationship. I admire her so much because she has always put her family before everything. All her priorities are in place and she is still an amazingly creative artist.

43. If you have something that you believe in and that you care about, you should pursue it with hard work, with perserverance, with patience, with diligence, with balance, and definitely with a lot of love. Because anything you do with a lot of love, you can't go wrong.

44. You're where you are because of [fans]. Maybe there's somebody standing there who made a very big effort to come to your show. Maybe this is their only opportunity to be this close to you.

45. Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

46. Being nice to people at work is like being nice to people on the roads; everyone likes you but you don't get anywhere.

47. Celebrity has always struck me as a dubious and transitory claim to achievement in our society. Status seekers and other so-called glitterati stand precariously on shifting sands, ever in danger of being swallowed up and then replaced by a fresh throng of famous or notorious stars.

48. I think that personality is what buoyed me through my whole career. That, and my small stature. Whatever quality it was I had, people have always been protective of me.

49. My career from earliest childhood was like a bright shiny bucket in a bucket line - I was passed along from hand to hand with everyone helping.

50. Once the press learnt of her success, she was called 'the girl from Mars'.

51. So I was at liberty, let us say, to write something about Coney Island in winter. If they liked it it would appear in print, my name would be signed to it, and I could show it to my friends, carry it about with me, put it under my pillow at night, read it surreptitiously, over and over, because the first time you see yourself in print you're beside yourself, you've at last proved to the world that you really are a writer, and you must prove it to the world, at least once in your life, or you will go mad from believing it all by yourself. And so to Coney Island on a wintry day. Alone, of course. It wouldn't do to have one's reflections and observations diverted by a trivial-minded friend. A new pad in my pocket and a sharp pencil.

52. The more and the more that he wrote, and the deeper and the deeper that he dived, Pierre saw the everlasting elusiveness of Truth; the universal lurking insincerity of even the greatest and purest written thoughts. Like knavish cards, the leaves of all great books were covertly packed. He was but packing one set the more; and that a very poor jaded set and pack indeed. So that there was nothing he more spurned, than his own aspirations; nothing he more abhorred than the loftiest part of himself. The brightest success, now seemed intolerable to him, since he so plainly saw, that the brightest success could not be the sole offspring of Merit; but of Merit for the one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and dovetailing accidents for the rest.

53. In the march up to the heights of fame, there comes a spot close to the summit in which a man reads nothing but detective stories.

54. They have done so much day in and day out and I want to thank all my friends and family, particularly my mother, who was born before women could vote, and is watching her daughter on this stage tonight.

55. 'When Hillary had the class reunion at the White House, there were 325 of us there,' said Catherine S. Gidlow, a lawyer in St. Louis. 'I turned to someone and said, 'I think there are 324 of us here who feel like failures,' and she said, 'No, I think there are 325 of us who feel like failures.''

56. Sedit qui timuit ne non succederet.

57. I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time and it has made a man of me.

58. I was infected with my desire, my resolve, to make it in broadcasting. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and how.

59. I would say that Don Meredith's erratic march to the Emmy, the most treasured of all broadcast awards, in his first year of TV work has to be regarded as one of the great feats of modern times.

60. There were other outlaws who missed the brass ring in the fifties. Lenny Bruce was one of them; he was never quite right for television. Bruce had tremendous potential until about 1961, when the people who had been getting such a kick out of him suddenly realized he was serious.

61. I handed the script to Svensk Filmindustri and they said 'No, thank you'. But then came the success with Smiles of a Summer Night and I got permission to make it, providing I did it in 35 days.

62. [He gave us the atom bomb]; what more do you want, mermaids?

63. Nothing has astonished me more (and I think my publishers) than the welcome given to The Lord of the Rings. But it is, of course, a constant source of consolation and pleasure to me. And, I may say, a piece of singular good fortune, much envied by some of my contemporaries. Wonderful people still buy the book, and to a man 'retired' that is both grateful and comforting.

64. Sometimes, when you have success, it traps you - and this is something that I think is really specific to the movie business. You don't even know it until you're in it, really.

65. 'If one is born with talent, one can have a wonderful life.'

66. Jack works across the aisle because he doesn't see an aisle. It is the root of his success and what others ought to emulate.

67. Davey: I feel like a motivational speaker right now. 'You CAN do it! Positive minds, positive body. We're here to show you guys today that you CAN succeed with the right outlook.'

68. The secret to AFI's awesomeness according to Jade: 'It's all in the wrist.'

69. 'I have a 2001 Civic, but it's only got one rim, so, you know, if our album does well I'm hoping to get three more rims, and then I think that'll be pimped to the maximum.'

70. Question: 'Now that you guys probably have some nice cash, would you ever buy a mansion? Or stick with the midsized houses, like 20-30 thousand? Just asking. And cars, do you stick with the cool old cheapy's or go with the hummers?'

71. We didn't find the key to the electoral lock...we just picked it.

72. You show me a winner and I'll show you someone who's lost a lot, You show me someone who's never lost and you show me a loser - someone who's never tried. The more a person wants to succeed in life and the bigger they dream, the more likely they are to fail.

73. I laugh at it today, now that I have had all the good of it. Let the bridge blow up, provided I have got my troops across... Nonetheless, that book was a terrible risk. A transparent leaf separates it from madness.

74. Julius Caesar. A Successful Career in the Civil Service.

75. He blew up higher than a hall.

76. I just never doubted it [success as a professional Jazz singer], man. I could tell I was hip. It was just those other kids who didn't know, OK?

77. I feel fortunate just to do different things, you know. We were born in Bossier City, Louisiana, grew up very poor. And to be able to come out and to make films & to make music, it's just a tremendous opportunity. I'm just grateful to do both.

78. It's a good thing you're gonna get that truck. The bad thing is you're gonna be smiling all day on TV and I don't think that that's pretty.

79. Develop high expectations.

80. The Warrior has won the title!

81. People feel they have to cover up who they are to be loved. But success comes from being real.

82. I think the highest and lowest points for a musician are the most important. Everything in between is well... in between.

83. The spark once transmitted may smoulder for generations under ashes, but the appointed time will come, and it will flare up to warm the world. God never allows waste. And we fools rub our eyes and wonder, when we see genius come out of the gutter. It didn't begin there. We tell ourselves that Shakespeare was the son of a woolpedlar, and Napoleon of a farmer, and Luther of a peasant, and we hold up our hands at the marvel. But who knows what kings and prophets they had in their ancestry!

84. We never expected anything, actually. I think we still don't expect anything. We were proud of the album when we finished it, so whatever success it has we are just like, 'Wow, cool.' It's not going to change the way we work or think. I'm as proud of this record now as I was when we finished it.

85. For whan men wene best to have achieved, Ful ofte it is al newe to beginne: The werre hath no thing siker, thogh he winne.

86. I've sold my soul to the devil.

87. What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, 'Get rid of the possessions of the mind.' Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right?

88. They said I wasn't being funny. And I said to them, 'I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow.'

89. Hitler: I'm not going to lie to you, it took a while. There were moments all along where I knew something was wrong. I remember one time... I think it was in Munich. We were having a rally. 100,000 people all chanting my name. The bonfires were going. The whole shebang. It should have been a crowning moment, but I clearly remember thinking, What am I doing here? I hate crowds.

90. I have always believed no matter how many shots I miss, I'm going to make the next one.

91. I need to explore and discover and so that has given me, really, to some what seems like courage, but really it's just in my stars, there's nothing I can do about it . . . . I guess I'll just take my award and run now.

92. How dispiriting I find it, even after all my personal triumphs, that we must grow up and grow sad, that we must age, weaken, and in time go home to our long home in the ground, and that even golden lads and girls all must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust.

93. Perhaps, for worldly success, we need virtues that make us loved and faults that make us feared.

94. 'I rock your face off? I rock your face off. I rocked someone's face off at the Grand Ole Opry. Check that off my list.'

95. 'I hoped to sell 50,000 records. My main goals were to sing my heart out, to challenge myself vocally, to find beautiful music that has great stories and to express what I love about the musicality of different languages. And if 10 people bought it, I'd be thrilled that 10 people listened to it. And if it was 10 million, I'd be thrilled that 10 million people listened to it. This is just beyond any dream that I could have possibly had.'

96. 'It's a nice feeling. I was not like the popular guy in high school. This is revenge for all the bullies in high school [laughter]. It's a great feeling. Maybe women sometimes are more open to romantic music.'

97. Perhaps he lives and dies unpraised, This trafficker in humble sweets, Because his little shops are raised By thousands in the city streets. Yet stars in greater numbers shine, And violets in millions grow, And they in many a golden line Are sung, as every child must know.

98. '[...] you go to the National with your parents and think: 'I'd love to be here.' And then suddenly you are. It's a dream come true.'

99. The temple of fame is the shortest passage to riches and preferment.

100. I didn't realise how commercially successful she might be. I thought of her more really, I suppose, in the terms of someone like Joni Mitchell - the level of a lady who's very talented, but would appeal to a more esoteric audience. But she had different ideas.