Marden Quotes & Sayings

Opportunity is often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be tuning in — Orison Swett Marden

Self-Control is the very essence of character. To be able to look a man straight in the eye, calmly and deliberately, without the slightest ruffle of temper under extreme provocation, gives a sense of power which nothing else can give. To feel that you are always, not sometimes, master of yourself, gives a dignity and strength to character, buttresses it, supports it on every side, as nothing else can. This is the culmination of thought mastery. — Orison Swett Marden

Life is a great university for the unfolding of the mind, for developing character. In choosing our life work, when we are free to choose, we should remember this, and choose that which will call the biggest man or woman out of us and not that from which we can coin the most dollars. — Orison Swett Marden

Wanted: a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting a living. — Orison Swett Marden

The world takes us at our own valuation. It believes in the man who believes in himself, but it has little use for the timid man, the one who is never certain of himself; who cannot rely on his own judgment, who craves advice from others, and is afraid to go ahead on his own account. — Orison Swett Marden

Fun is the cheapest and best medicine in the world for your children as well as for yourself. Give it to them in good large doses. It will not only save you doctors' bills, but it will also help to make your children happier, and will improve their chances in life. — Orison Swett Marden

A lobster, when left high and dry among the rock, does not have the sense enough to work his way back to the sea, but waits for the sea to come to him. If it does not come, he remains where he is and dies, although the slightest effort would enable him to reach the waves, which are perhaps within a yard of him. The world is full of human lobsters; people stranded on the rocks of indecision and procrastination, who, instead of putting forth their own energies, are waiting for some grand billow of good fortune to set them afloat. — Orison Swett Marden

Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is out of the question. — Orison Swett Marden

With five chances on each hand and one unwavering aim, no boy, however poor, need despair. There is bread and success for every youth under the American flag who has energy and ability to seize his opportunity. — Orison Swett Marden

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

Abstraction has always been around, since the drawings in the caves. It exists in all cultures all over the world. I thought for a while that it was going to be the major movement. But people always drift back to realism. I guess there is a certain security in that. — Brice Marden

Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes, is but perseverance in disguise. — Orison Swett Marden

The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling. — Orison Swett Marden

Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desires — Orison Swett Marden

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers. — Orison Swett Marden

What keeps so many people back is simply unwillingness to pay the price, to make the exertion, the effort to sacrifice their ease and comfort. — Orison Swett Marden

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

No one can make the most of himself until he looks upon his life as a magnificent possibility, the materials for a great masterpiece, to mar or spoil which would be a great tragedy. — Orison Swett Marden

It is every one's sacred duty to keep himself in a condition to do the biggest thing possible to him. — Orison Swett Marden

There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to do our level best right where we are every day of our lives; To use our best judgment, and then to trust the rest to that Power which holds the forces of the universe in his hands. — Orison Swett Marden

Form the habit early in life of leaving your business at the store or wherever you may be employed. Never carry it home to mar the peace of your family; if you do, you will soon drive out the sunshine. — Orison Swett Marden

Fear is a great robber of power. It paralyzes the thinking faculties, ruins spontaneity, enthusiasm, and self confidence. It has a blighting effect upon all one's thoughts, moods, and efforts. It destroys ambition and efficiency. — Orison Swett Marden

If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. — Orison Swett Marden

Where did the idea come from that we should take life so seriously, anyway? Why should a man be such a slave to his breadwinning? We ought to be able to get a good living, even to make fortunes, and yet have a good time every day of our lives. This idea of being a slave most of the time, and of only occasionally enjoying a holiday, is all wrong. — Orison Swett Marden

Work, love and play are the great balance wheels of man's being. — Orison Swett Marden

What we do when defeat stares us in the face is the real touchstone of character. But the very fact that success has time and again proved the means of awakening people to the knowledge of greater ability than they ever before dreamed they possessed, ought to hearten and encourage us to keep on no matter how often we fail. If we brace ourselves and continue to push forward we will ultimately win out. (From Everybody ahead, or getting the most out of life) — Orison Swett Marden

The world makes way for the man with an idea. — Orison Swett Marden

Laughter brightens the eye, increases the perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air from the least-used cells, and tends to restore that exquisite poise or balance which we call health. — Orison Swett Marden

If we hold the poverty thought, the penury thought, the thought of lack, we cannot demonstrate abundance. We must hold the plenty thought if we would reach plenty. — Orison Swett Marden

Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will never fail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for assistance; open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon which to bestow their gifts; open hands will never lack for noble work to do. — Orison Swett Marden

Just because you are struggling on a farm or in a factory, doing something against which your whole nature rebels, because there is no one to help you support your aged parents or an invalid brother or sister, do not conclude that your vision must perish. Keep pushing on as best you can, and affirming your divine power to attain your desire. Hundreds and thousands of poor boys and girls with poorer opportunities than yours have done immortal deeds because they had faith in their ideal and in their power to attain it. — Orison Swett Marden

We are all the products of our own thoughts. Whatever we concentrate upon, that we are. — Orison Swett Marden

A great many young men try to justify themselves and check inward protests by the perpetual self-suggestion that it is better to keep on, for the present, in questionable occupations, because the great financial reward will put them in position to do better later. This is a sort of sedative to the conscience to keep it quiet until they can afford to listen to it. — Orison Swett Marden

I smoke pot when I work. I take a couple of tokes before I start. It just loosens you up. — Brice Marden

History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized occasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less resolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the world before them. — Orison Swett Marden

It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that holds the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others. — Orison Swett Marden

You can't say I'm going to become a painter in the same way you say I'm going to become a dentist. Or maybe you can nowadays. But it's an endeavor. — Brice Marden

The glow of satisfaction which follows the consciousness of doing our level best never comes to a human being from any other experience. — Orison Swett Marden

Your outlook upon life, your estimate of yourself, your estimate of your value are largely colored by your environment. Your whole career will be modified, shaped, molded by your surroundings, by the character of the people whom you come in contact everyday. — Orison Swett Marden

We cannot rise higher than our thought of ourselves. — Orison Swett Marden

But how shall I get ideas? 'Keep your wits open! Observe! Observe! Study! Study! But above all, Think! Think! And when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind - Act! — Orison Swett Marden

We were made to dominate our environment. It was not intended that we should be buffeted about by accident or chance. Our greatest enemies live in our own brains, in our imaginations, in our wrong ideas of life. We were intended to be conquerors instead of slaves and there is no slavery like the slavery to a conviction or a superstition that makes us cowards. — Orison Swett Marden

We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out. — Orison Swett Marden

You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else. — Orison Swett Marden

True economy means the wisest expenditure of what we have, everything considered, looking at it from the broadest standpoint. It is not a good thing to save a nickel at the expenditure of twenty-five cents' worth of time. — Orison Swett Marden

Whatever comes to us in life we create first in our mentality. As the building is a reality in all its details in the architects mind before a stone or brick is laid, so we create mentally everything which later becomes a reality in our achievement. — Orison Swett Marden

Epictetus, the pagan philosopher, proved in his life the truth of his own words - "A man can be happy without wealth, without family, without office or honor, without health, without anything that the world seeks after. — Orison Swett Marden

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

The greatest thing a man can possibly do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other. It is not a question of what someone else can do or become which every youth should ask himself, but what can I do? How can I develop myself into the grandest possible manhood? — Orison Swett Marden

Be larger than your task. — Orison Swett Marden

Real happiness is so simple that most people do not recognize it. They think it comes from doing something on a big scale, from a big fortune, or from some great achievement, when, in fact, it is derived from the simplest, the quietest, the most unpretentious things in the world. — Orison S. Marden

Saturate yourself with the ideals, with the convictions which you long to come true. Keep your mind filled with them and they must by the very law of attraction force out their opposites, for like attracts like. If you hold the love thought in your mind the hate thought must go. Love and hate can not live together. Light and darkness can not live together. — Orison Swett Marden

The habit of thinking of ourselves as sublime, or having a lofty conception of our possibilities, of imagining ourselves as being commanded by the Almighty to do a great work on this earth, of thinking of ourselves as not only human but divine, gods in the making, because we are a product of Divinity, will help us wonderfully to grasp the higher meaning of life and do the thing worth while. — Orison Swett Marden

If you have not what you like, like what you have until you can change your environment. Do not waste your vitality in hating your life; find something in it which is worth liking and enjoying, while you keep steadily at work to make it what you desire. Be happy over something, every day, for the brain is a thing of habit, and you cannot teach it to be happy in a moment, if you allow it to be miserable for years. — Orison Swett Marden

I respect all artists, just some more than the others. Because it's something that really needs to be done. — Brice Marden

If you are ambitious to talk well, you must be as much as possible in the society of well-bred, cultured people. If you seclude yourself, though you are a college graduate, you will be a poor converser. — Orison Swett Marden

The mere fact that so many continue to rise, year after year, out of just such conditions as you may think are fatal to your advancement, ought to convince you that you also can conquer your environment. — Orison Swett Marden

What is enthusiasm but a passionate belief in what seems to be a high and holy aim, - an unselfish devotion to some noble cause, - a consecration of heart and mind and soul to the attainment of a great object? What is it but an earnest effort to attain the heights of spiritual and intellectual endeavor? What is it but the life, the force, the power, which makes individuals or nations capable of enduring much and waiting long, in the conviction that ultimately the thing they have at heart will be accomplished? — Orison Swett Marden

I don't remember any dream. All I remember is waking up and feeling that there had been a change while I was sleeping. — Brice Marden

Do not give up your dream because it is apparently not being realized, because you cannot see it coming true. Cling to your vision with all the tenacity you can muster. Keep it bright; do not let the bread-and-butter side of life cloud your ideal or dim it. — Orison Swett Marden

Self-confidence carries conviction; it makes other people believe in us. — Orison Swett Marden

Power gravitates to the man who knows how. — Orison Swett Marden

We lift ourselves by our own thought; we climb upon our vision of ourselves. — Orison Swett Marden

Pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up. — Orison Swett Marden

The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating mind. Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every newspaper article is an opportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is an opportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity, an opportunity to be polite, an opportunity to be manly, an opportunity to be honest, an opportunity to make friends. — Orison Swett Marden

It is a psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind; that is, we must register a vow with ourselves, we must make our resolution with vigor, with faith that we can do the thing we want to do; we must register our conviction with such intensity that the great creative forces within us will tend to realize them. Our impressions will become expressions just in proportion to the vigor with which we register our vows to accomplish our ambitions, to make our visions realities. — Orison S. Marden

Real happiness cannot be bribed by anything sordid or low. — Orison Swett Marden

How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, all nature smiles, the air seems more balmy, the sky clearer, the earth has a brighter green ... the flowers are more fragrant ... and the sun, moon, and stars all appear more beautiful, and seem to rejoice with us. — Orison Swett Marden

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become. — Orison Swett Marden

Whoever uplifts civilization is rich though he die penniless, and future generations will erect his monument. — Orison Swett Marden

Before water generates steam, it must register two hundred and twelve degrees of heat. Two hundred degrees will not do it; two hundred and ten will not do it. The water must boil before it will generate enough steam to move an engine, to run a train. Lukewarm water will not run anything.
A great many people are trying to move their life trains with lukewarm water - or water that is almost boiling - and they are wondering why they are stalled, why they cannot get ahead. They are trying to run a boiler with two hundred or two hundred and ten degrees of heat, and they cannot understand why they do not get anywhere.
Lukewarmness in his work stands in the same relation to man's achievement as lukewarm water does to the locomotive boiler. No man can hope to accomplish anything great in this world until he throws his whole soul, flings his force to his whole life, into it. — Orison Swett Marden

Books," says E. P. Whipple, "are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time." "As a rule," said Benjamin Disraeli, "the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information. — Orison Swett Marden

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them. — Orison Swett Marden

When you're using a long brush, you have your arm at full length. Basically, it exaggerates the movement of your body. But I always start far away and end up really close. — Brice Marden

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. — Orison Swett Marden

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

Every discovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeing things ... Keep your eyes open, your ears open ... Trace difficulties. — Orison Swett Marden

One of the greatest boons that can ever come to a human being is to be born on a farm and reared in the country. Self-reliance and grit are oftenest country-bred. — Orison Swett Marden

What is needed by him who would succeed in the highest degree possible is careful planning. He is to accumulate reserved power, that he may be equal to all emergencies. — Orison Swett Marden

Time is money. We should not be stingy or mean with it, but we should not throw away an hour any more than we would throw away a dollar-bill. Waste of time means waste of energy, waste of vitality, waste of character in dissipation. It means the waste of opportunities which will never come back. Beware how you kill time, for all your future lives in it. — Orison Swett Marden

Superiority - doing things a little better than anybody else can do them. — Orison Swett Marden

We cannot separate our lives from time. Why is it that we are so extravagant, so thoughtless, in our waste of time, especially in youth, when we cling so tenaciously to life? You cannot separate a wasted hour from the same duration of your life. If you waste your time, you must waste your life. If you improve your time, you cannot help improving your life. — Orison Swett Marden

A man will remain a rag-picker as long as he has only the vision of a rag-picker. — Orison Swett Marden

It is the direct man who strikes sledgehammer blows, who penetrates the very marrow of a subject at every stroke and gets the meat out of a proposition, who does things. — Orison S. Marden

We can have little faith in the youth who is always crying out against his condition, and telling an incredulous world what great things he could do if his lot were different. — Orison Swett Marden

Always carry yourself as though you were marching to victory, make this impression upon everyone who sees you. Let victory stand out of your very face, let it speak out of your eyes with such determination, with such vigorous resolution that people will know that there is no such thing as keeping you down, no such thing as discouraging you, because you are victory-organized, because you are in the habit of winning. Give people the suggestion of invincibility. This will be worth more to you than a large amount of money capital without it, or with an appearance of cowardice or defeat in your face, a suggestion of weakness or doubt, fear as to the outcome of your career. — Orison Swett Marden

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being. — Orison Swett Marden

The great thing in life is efficiency. If you amount to anything in the world, your time is valuable, your energy precious. They are your success capital, and you cannot afford to heedlessly throw them away or trifle with them. — Orison Swett Marden

They may well fear fate who have any infirmity of habit or aim: but they who rest on what is have a destiny beyond destiny, and can make mouths of fortune. — Orison Swett Marden

Why do we allow the mirage of to-morrow to keep our eyes from the beauties of to-day? — Orison Swett Marden

Every time I open the paper, there's some symphony orchestra collapsing somewhere in the United States. What the hell is going on? And then you find out that the board members try to run these things as businesses. — Brice Marden

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

That disables a lot of people from achieving goals, it is simply, a lack of willingness to pay for these goals, a lack of willingness to make great effort, a lack of willingness to sacrifice their comfort for those goals. — Orison Swett Marden

What are stumbling blocks and defeat to the weak and vacillating are but stepping stones to victory to the determined soul. — Orison Swett Marden

These days people believe they can go into art and make a living. We didn't have that. The abstract expressionists were older, by the time they even got a show. Now people come right out of school and sell. — Brice Marden

The trouble with us is that we expect too much from the great happenings, the unusual things, and we overlook the common flowers on the path of life, from which we might abstract sweets, comforts, delights. — Orison Swett Marden

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances. — Orison Swett Marden

Instead of worrying over unforeseen misfortune, set out with all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen blessings of all your coming days. — Orison Swett Marden

Remember that there is something else in the world even more important than making money. Your health, your family, your friendships should mean a thousand times more to you than dollarchasing. Life was given us for enjoyment, not for one long, strenuous, straining struggle in the dreary drudgery of scraping dollars together. — Orison Swett Marden

Character is power, and is the best advertisement in the world. — Orison Swett Marden