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Success Quotes

There are not many famous names on this page. Shakespeare leads, then Steve Maraboli and Emerson, and most of the authors appear only once. The quotes with real citations are more interesting than the motivational ones: James Richardson’s “Success is whatever humiliation everyone has agreed to compete for” (Vectors, 2001), or Jean Ingelow in 1886 observing that if one cannot have success, the next most agreeable thing is failure.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” is credited to Churchill almost everywhere it appears. No source has been found. One of the places it shows up is a 2003 book, with none given. It is on the Courage page too, with the same flag.

Random quote on Success

Most quoted on success:

Success necessarily emasculates the spirit of rebellion. From the point of view of the true rebel the noblest cause is a lost cause.

R. W. K. Paterson The New Patricians (1998)

Our culture today confuses great attention and great success, assuming them to be the same thing. But they are not.

Mark Manson The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016)

Details matter. Ignoring them can be the difference between success and failure.

Dan Crenshaw Fortitude (2020)

There is no success without sacrifice. It is not just women, men even make huge sacrifices.

Aisha Falode

A true and complete man should not be intimidated by a woman’s success. In fact, a man should help his woman become more successful.

Bolaji Ogunmola

Rashness brings success to few, misfortune to many.

Phaedrus

If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Satan's successes are the greatest when he appears with the name of God on his lips.

Mahatma Gandhi

A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public.

Nicolas Chamfort

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

Alexander Graham Bell Sophia's Fire (2005)

Q: Does commercial success matter to you?

Thom Yorke

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

Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn : A Life in Pictures (2007)

Instructors must always be positive. Even if someone fails at something, you must have the energy to help them turn it into success.

Koichi Tohei Ki Sayings (2003)

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

William Saroyan My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)

It is excellent for a man to be simple in his tastes, to avoid extravagance, to own no possessions, to entertain no craving for worldly success.

Yoshida Kenkō Tsurezuregusa (1330)

The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.

Joyce Brothers Business Class : Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work (2005)

Those who have easy, cheerful attitudes tend to be happier than those with less pleasant temperaments, regardless of money, "making it", or success.

Joyce Brothers Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006)

I can now rejoice even in the falsification of a cherished theory, because even this is a scientific success.

John Carew Eccles the Introduction of Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)

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

Dale Carnegie

Success requires no explanations, failure presents no alibis.

Fred Shero

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