Success Quotes

 


The universe is change; life is what thinking makes of it. 
– Marcus Aurelius


We cannot change the past, but we can reshape the future. Young people have the opportunity to create a happier, better future. - Dalai Lama

 
It takes more than just a good looking body. You’ve got to have the heart and soul to go with it. – Epictetus




When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
– Sherlock Holmes


 
The universe is change; life is what thinking makes of it. 
– Marcus Aurelius
 

Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything. - anon.

 
"Formula for success: Rise early, work hard, strike oil."
John Paul Getty


"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."
Dale Carnegie

 
"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
Thomas Edison

 
"Men are born to succeed, not fail."
Henry David Thoreau


" The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it."
anon.


"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."
Nelson Mandela


 
"One secret of success in life is for a man to be
ready for his opportunity when it comes."
Benjamin Disraeli

 
Four things for success: work and pray, think and believe. 
Norman Vincent Peale
  

Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking. Bernard M. Baruch

 
Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want. Bernard M. Baruch

 
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dream, and endeavors to live the life which he had imagines, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. 
Henry David Thoreau

 
Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other. Erma Bombeck

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

 
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. Albert Einstein

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

 
The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work. Mark Twain

 
I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.
Walt Disney

 
Success depends upon previous preparation,
and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
Confucius

 
The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business,
and success only a subsequent consideration.
Confucius

 
As a general rule the most successful man in life is
the man who has the best information.
Benjamin Disraeli

 
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
Benjamin Disraeli


Through perseverance many people win success out of what
seemed destined to be certain failure.
Benjamin Disraeli
 


"One fails forward toward success."
Charles F. Kettering

 
"No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist."
J. P. Getty
 
  


I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. 
Henry David Thoreau
 
  


“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” -Albert Einstein

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so life is amply long for the one who orders it properly.”
-Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

(Source of the quote above)

 

“Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don't aim at success -- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run -- in the long-run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”

 -Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

finding Meaning

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.” – Viktor E. Frankl

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow | Video on TED.com

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has contributed pioneering work to our understanding of happiness, creativity, human fulfillment and the notion of "flow" -- a state of heightened focus and immersion in activities such as art, play and work.

Why you should listen to him:

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. A leading researcher in positive psychology, he has devoted his life to studying what makes people truly happy: "When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." He is the architect of the notion of "flow" -- the creative moment when a person is completely involved in an activity for its own sake.

Csikszentmihalyi teaches psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University, focusing on human strengths such as optimism, motivation and responsibility. He's the director the the Quality of Life Research Center there. He has written numerous books and papers about the search for joy and fulfillment.

"A man obsessed by happiness."

Richard Flaste, New York Times Read more about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the TED Blog »

Quotes by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

• “You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel part of something larger.” — on experiencing ‘flow’ Watch this talk »
  

More TEDQuotes…

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the Web

• Research: Quality of Life Research Center
• Homepage: Claremont Graduate University
• Interview: Wired 4.09
• Game: A videogame based on Flow
• Wikipedia: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow | Video on TED.com


Link:  http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

Zorba the Greek

“Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek


“Let your youth have free reign, it won't come again, so be bold and no repenting.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek


“When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 
“You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

 
“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.” 
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the longer the tether of our slavery?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek



“Once more there sounded within me the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 

“the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 

“Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’
Which of us was right, boss?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek


“I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 
“When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags—without desires—shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I—free, fearless, and blissful—retire to the forest? When? When, oh when?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
 
 

“Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my travels and my dreams. Very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggles.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

 “Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind's supreme model.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco





“Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, The Rock Garden



“My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness, is a simple, frugal heart.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis


“The canary began to sing again. The sun had struck it, and its throat and tiny breast had filled with song. Francis gazed at it for a long time, not speaking, his mouth hanging half opened, his eyes dimmed with tears.
"The canary is like man's soul," he whispered finally. "It sees bars round it, but instead if despairing, it sings. It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo: one day its song shall break the bars.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis

Rick Hanson - - Hardwiring Happiness

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and  New York Times best-selling author.

- Hardwiring Happiness,

- Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, and

-  Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time.

 and Mother Nurture.


Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and an Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.

An authority on self-directed neuroplasticity, Dr. Hanson’s work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, FoxBusiness, Consumer Reports Health,  U.S. News and World Report, and O Magazine.

He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin, and his weekly e-newsletter – Just One Thing – has over 90,000 subscribers, and

- also appears on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites.

He has several audio programs with Sounds True, and his first book was Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships.

A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, Dr. Hanson is a trustee of Saybrook University. He also served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center for nine years, and was President of the Board of FamilyWorks, a community agency.

He began meditating in 1974, trained in several traditions, and leads a weekly meditation gathering in San Rafael, CA. 


For more information about Rick, please go to www.RickHanson.net

Bringing back a Wandering Attention - William James

 William James was interested in mindfulness and attention:  



 “The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui [master of himself] if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”




William James, Psychology: Briefer Course, p. 424 (Harper Torchbooks, 1961)