How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune Quotes

“SAVE. If you want to test a young man and ascertain whether nature made him for a king or a subject, give him a thousand dollars and see what he will do with it. If he is born to conquer and command, he will put it quietly away till he is ready to use it as opportunity offers. If he is born to serve, he will immediately begin to spend it in gratifying his ruling propensity. —Parton.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Don't think you have no chance in life because you have no capital to begin with. Most of the rich men of to-day began poor. The chances are you would be ruined if you had capital.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Better a cheap coffin and a plain funeral after a useful, unselfish life, than a grand mausoleum after a loveless, selfish life.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Nature hates all botched and half-finished work, and will pronounce her curse upon it.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Don't wait for a higher position or a larger salary. Enlarge the position you already occupy; put originality of method into it. Fill it as it never was filled before. Be more prompt, more energetic, more thorough, more polite than your predecessor or fellow-workmen. Study your business, devise new modes of operation, be able to give your employer points. The art lies not in giving satisfaction merely, not in simply filling your place, but in doing better than was expected, in surprising your employer; and the reward will be a better place and a larger salary.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; morals grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“BOOKS AND SUCCESS. Ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. —Shakespeare. Prefer knowledge to wealth; for the one is transitory, the other perpetual. —Socrates. If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. —Franklin. My early and invincible love of reading, I would not exchange for the treasures of India. —Gibbon. If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all. —Fénelon. Who of us can tell What he had been, had Cadmus never taught The art that fixes into form the thought,— Had Plato never spoken from his cell, Or his high harp blind Homer never strung? —Bulwer.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Cicero said: "Not to have a mania for buying, is to possess a revenue." Many are carried away by the habit of bargain-buying. "Here's something wonderfully cheap; let's buy it." "Have you any use for it?" "No, not at present; but it is sure to come in useful, some time.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“If you cannot at first control your anger, learn to control your tongue, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a hard master.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“GUARD YOUR WEAK POINT. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. —Bible. The first and best of victories is for a man to conquer himself: to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful and vile. —Plato. The worst education which teaches self-denial is better than the best which teaches everything else and not that. —John Sterling. Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. —Seneca. The energy which issues in growth, or assimilates knowledge, must originate in self and be self-directed. —Thomas J. Morgan.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“COURAGE. Quit yourselves like men. —1 Samuel iv. 9 Cowards have no luck. —Elizabeth Kulman. He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear. —Emerson. To dare is better than to doubt, For doubt is always grieving; 'Tis faith that finds the riddles out; The prize is for believing. —Henry Burton. —Walk Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast; There is a hand above will help thee on. —Bailey's Festus. "Have hope! Though clouds environ now, And gladness hides her face in scorn, Put thou the shadow from thy brow— No night but hath its morn.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Character is power, and is the best advertisement in the world.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“He who follows two hares is sure to catch”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Let the adverse breath of criticism be to you only what the blast of the storm wind is to the eagle,—a force against him that lifts him higher.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“What has chance ever done in the world? Has it built any cities? Has it invented any telephones, any telegraphs? Has it built any steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals? Was there any chance in Cæsar's crossing the Rubicon? What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's? Every battle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do with Thermopylæ, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our successes we ascribe to ourselves; our failures to destiny.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“To-morrow! it is a period nowhere to be found in all the hoary registers of time, unless perchance in the fool's calendar. Wisdom”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Several Brazilian shepherds organized a party to go to California to dig gold, and took along a handful of clear pebbles to play checkers with on the voyage. They discovered after arriving at Sacramento, after they had thrown most of the pebbles away, that they were all diamonds. They returned to Brazil only to find that the mines had been taken up by others and sold to the government. The richest gold and silver mine in Nevada was sold for forty-two dollars by the owner, to get money to pay his passage to other mines where he thought he could get rich.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears." "You may deceive all the people some of the time," said Lincoln, "some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time." We cannot deceive ourselves any of the time, and the only way to enjoy our own respect is to deserve it. What would you think of a man who would neglect himself and treat his shadow with the greatest respect?”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Helen Hunt says there is one sin which seems to be everywhere, and by everybody is underestimated and quite too much overlooked in valuations of character. It is the sin of fretting. It is as common as air, as speech; so common that unless it rises above its usual monotone we do not even observe it. Watch any ordinary coming together of people, and we see how many minutes it will be before somebody frets—that is, makes more or less complaint of something or other, which probably every one in the room, or car, or on the street corner knew before, and which most probably nobody can help. Why say anything about it? It is cold, it is hot, it is wet, it is dry, somebody has broken an appointment, ill-cooked a meal; stupidity or bad faith somewhere has resulted in discomfort. There are plenty of things to fret about. It is simply astonishing, how much annoyance and discomfort may be found in the course of every-day living, even of the simplest, if one only keeps a sharp eye out on that side of things. Some people seem to be always hunting for deformities, discords and shadows, instead of beauty, harmony and light. We are born to trouble, as sparks fly upward. But even to the sparks flying upward, in the blackest of smoke, there is a blue sky above, and the less time they waste on the road, the sooner they will reach it. Fretting is all time wasted on the road. About two things we should never fret, that which we cannot help, and that which we can help. Better find one of your own faults than ten of your neighbor's.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger," says Beecher. "It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Who is the richest of men?" asked Socrates. "He who is content with the least, for contentment is nature's riches.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Agassiz would not lecture at five hundred dollars a night, because he had no time to make money.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“RICHES WITHOUT WINGS. Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. —Eph. iv. I. Abundance consists not alone in material possession, but in an uncovetous spirit. —Selden. Less coin, less care; to know how to dispense with wealth is to possess it. —Reynolds. Rich, from the very want of wealth, In heaven's best treasures, peace and health. —Gray. Money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. —Franklin. There are treasures laid up in the heart, treasures of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him beyond death, when he leaves this world. —Buddhist Scriptures. "It is better to get wisdom than gold; for wisdom is better than rubies, and all things that may be desired are not to be compared to it." "Better a cheap coffin and a plain funeral after a useful, unselfish life, than a grand mausoleum after a loveless, selfish life.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“books. They are friends to the lonely, companions to the deserted, joy to the joyless, hope to the hopeless, good cheer to the disheartened, a helper to the helpless. They bring light into darkness, and sunshine into shadow.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“No entertainment is so cheap as reading," says Mary Wortley Montagu; "nor any pleasure so lasting." Good books elevate the character, purify the taste, take the attractiveness out of low pleasures, and lift us upon a higher plane of thinking and living. It is not easy to be mean directly after reading a noble and inspiring book. The conversation of a man who reads for improvement or pleasure will be flavored by his reading; but it will not be about his reading.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Reading is to the mind," says Addison, "what exercise is to the body. As by the one health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated, by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished and confirmed.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you," says Trollope, "is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasures that God has prepared for His creatures. Other pleasures may be more ecstatic; but the habit of reading is the only enjoyment I know, in which there is no alloy.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“I could read and walk four miles an hour.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune

“Self-respect is the early form in which greatness appears.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune