quotations about success
Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
attributed, Witty Words from Wise Women: Quips, Quotes, and Comebacks
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there.
IRVING BERLIN
Theatre Arts, February 1958
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
BILL GATES
The Road Ahead
You're bound to succeed if you have ignorance and confidence.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
You might discover greater success is just a matter of better channeling and projecting positivity about work.
CHRISTY RAKOCZY
"5 smart brain hacks to help you feel -- and project -- more positivity at work", Mic, July 10, 2017
Success is a hidden jewel, and is found but by a few.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one's situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are.
DONALD BARTHELME
"The Crisis"
The funny thing about having all this so-called success is that behind it is a certain horrible emptiness.
SAM SHEPARD
The Observer, March 20, 2010
The successful man is the one whose images correspond most closely to reality, because then his actions will lead to the results which he imagines. A man's failures depend upon the fact that his images do not correspond to reality, whether he is dealing with marriage, politics, business, or the horse races.
ERIC BERNE
The Mind in Action
All successful men have agreed in one thing--they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things. A belief in causality, or strict connection between every trifle and the principle of being, and, in consequence, belief in compensation, or, that nothing is got for nothing--characterizes all valuable minds, and must control every effort that is made by an industrious one. The most valiant men are the best believers in the tension of the laws.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Conduct of Life
About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure.
TOMMY LASORDA
The Artful Dodger
Success is sweet: the sweeter if long delayed and attained through manifold struggles and defeats.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Success: a marvelous stimulant, bubbling with inspiration and incitement. But for all except the few who are strong and steadfast, there lurks beneath the effervescence a subtle poison.
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
Success: A Novel
Every person falls down at some point. Successful people choose to get back up.
DAVE RAMSEY
daily tip, official Dave Ramsey website
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
INFECTED MUSHROOM
"The Missed Symphony"
Success is terrifying. Like happiness, it is often appreciated in retrospect. It's only later that you place it in perspective. Years from now, I'll look back and say, "God, wasn't it wonderful?"
JULIE ANDREWS
This Week, September 18, 1966
If you are a genius and unsuccessful, everybody treats you as if you were a genius, but when you come to be successful, when you commence to earn money, when you are really successful, then your family and everybody no longer treats you like a genius, they treat you like a man who has become successful.
PABLO PICASSO
attributed, Picasso
Success too often sanctions the worst and the wildest schemes of human ambition.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.
ANTHONY ROBBINS
attributed, 101 Best Ways to Get Ahead
Success and failure are not dealt out like prizes and blanks in a lottery, by chance and indiscriminately; but there is a reason for every success and failure. Indolence, chicanery, waste will cause the one; while industry, honesty, and thrift will insure the other.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays