You may depend on it, that it is more in your own power than in any one else’s to promote both your comfort and advancement.
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A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with — a man is what he makes of himself.
Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.
‘Tis not in mortals to command success; but we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.
The worst part of success is to try finding someone who is happy for you.
Diane Court: Nobody thinks it will work, do they?
Lloyd Dobler: No. You just described every great success story.
Whatever Zaphod’s qualities of mind might include – dash, bravado, conceit – he was mechanically inept and could easily blow the ship up with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life that he never really understood the significance of anything he did.
The penalty of success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you.
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning wheel we must all earn to ride, or fall into the sluiceways of oblivion and despair. That which made me succeed with the bicycle was precisely what had gained me a measure of success in life — it was the hardihood of spirit that led me to begin, the persistence of will that held me to my task, and the patience that was willing to begin again when the last stroke had failed. And so I found high moral uses in the bicycle and can commend it as a teacher without pulpit or creed. She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life.
Natalie: Two guys have ascended five miles into the sky. They walked up a wall of ice, and are preparing to knock on the door of Heaven itself. There’s really no end to what we can do. You know what the trick is?
Dan: What?
Natalie: Get in the game.
Master Fung: There are no lessons in winning, but a thousand in losing.
When anyone tells me I can’t do anything, I’m just not listening anymore.
It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.
You have to believe in yourself when no one else does — that makes you a winner right there.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous that has attained its strength gradually. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider — and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation — persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.
Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
When people used to see Wake Forest on the schedule, they used a pen to mark down a ‘W.’ We’re at the point now where we at least make them use a pencil.
There is only one success… to be able to spend your life in your own way.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’t
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
Typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historical, macrocosmic triumph. Whereas the former—the youngest or despised child who becomes the master of extraordinary powers—prevails over his personal oppressors, the latter brings back from his adventure the means for the regeneration of his society as a whole.
I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
From the moment, as a boy of seventeen, I first began to pay my own way, my days were ordered by an inscrutable power which drove me hourly to my task. I was rarely allowed to look up or down, but always forward, toward that vague Success which we Americans love to glorify.
Tony Stark: You’re missing the point. There’s no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes, and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it.
While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of “rags to riches” were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.
When the shadow of the sash appeared in the curtains it was between seven and eight o’clock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.
We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.
Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
A minute’s success pays the failure of years.
Mal: We have done the impossible and that makes us mighty.
It is not in the power of any man to command success; but you have done more — you have deserved it.
The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you.
Buffy: Hey! Look at us. We came up with a plan, a good plan.
It was close; but that’s the way it is in war. You win or lose, live or die — and the difference is just an eyelash.
This quote is attributed / unsourced.
We have reached a higher degree of comfort and security than ever existed before in the history of the world.
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.
It takes three things to make it in this business: the tenacity of a bulldog, the hide of a rhinoceros and a good home to come home to.
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
Michael: Just hold on, please! Okay, if we do lose/lose, neither of you gets what you want. Do you understand? You… you would both lose. Now I need to ask you, do you want to pursue a lose/lose negotiation?
Angela: Can we just skip to whatever number 5 is – win/win or whatever?
Michael: Win/win is number four and number five is win/win/win. The important difference here is with win/win/win, we all win. Me too. I win for having successfully mediated a conflict at work.
Minion: We’ve had a lot of adventures together, you and I…
Megamind: Yes, Minion, we have.
Minion: I mean, most of them ended in horrible failure, but we won today, didn’t we, sir?
Megamind: Yes, Minion. We did it, thanks to you.
Minion: Code: We’re The Good Guys Now.
Megamind: Code: I Guess We Are.
Kirk: I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.
