Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Orison Swett Marden Author

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: 1850
  • Died: 1924

Dr. Orison Swett Marden was an American inspirational author who wrote on success in life and how to achieve it. His writings discuss common-sense principles and virtues that make for a well-rounded, successful life. Many of his ideas are based on New Thought philosophy.

His first book, Pushing to the Front, became an instant best-seller and remains a classic in the genre of self-help. Marden later published fifty or more books and booklets, averaging two titles per year.

Marden had an unusual ability to strike a chord with his readers, encouraging them with hope and firing them with ambition to achieve. The privations of his childhood and youth, his broad education and his wide business experience in early manhood were factors that enabled him to write with understanding, sympathy and depth. Marden died in 1924 at the age of seventy-four.

Put the uncommon effort into the common task... make it large by doing it in a great way.

No one has a corner on success. It is his who pays the price.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.

The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reaction is greater than the action.

Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed pay the price and it is yours.

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.

The quality of your work, in the long run, is the deciding factor on how much your services are valued by the world.

It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.

The golden rule for every business man is this: 'Put yourself in your customer's place.'

What power can poverty have over a home where loving hearts are beating with a consciousness of untold riches of the head and heart?

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities strong men make them.

Our thoughts and imagination are the only real limits to our possibilities.

Power gravitates to the man who knows how.

Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us.

There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King.

We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.

Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us.

You have not found your place until all your faculties are roused, and your whole nature consents and approves of the work you are doing.

There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.

No man fails who does his best.