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Quotes about success

561 quotes from 329 people

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My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.
Charles Dickens1812–1870David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 42In context
- Motivation & Goals
- Work
For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.
Herman Melville1819–1891Moby-Dick (1851), Chapter XVIIn context
Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.
Herman Melville1819–1891Moby-Dick (1851), Chapter XXXVIIn context
- Anger
- Motivation & Goals
He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it⁠—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
Mark Twain1835–1910The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Chapter IIIn context
- Envy
- Motivation & Goals
Talent isn’t genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.
Louisa May Alcott1832–1888Little Women (1868–1869), Part Second, Chapter XXXIXIn context
- Genius
- Motivation & Goals
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter IIIn context
- Motivation & Goals
There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.
F. Scott Fitzgerald1896–1940The Great Gatsby (1925), Chapter IVIn context
- Motivation & Goals
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961The Sun Also Rises (1926), Book II, Chapter 13In context
- Failure
- Money
Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that to-morrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?
L. M. Montgomery1874–1942Anne of Green Gables (1908), Chapter XXIIn context
- Failure
- Hope
For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.
L. M. Montgomery1874–1942Anne of Green Gables (1908), Chapter XXXVIIn context
- Motivation & Goals
- Work
To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat⁠—and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.
Upton Sinclair1878–1968The Jungle (1906), Chapter IIn context
- Failure
- Motivation & Goals
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other
William Shakespeare1564–1616Macbeth (c. 1606), Act I, Scene VII, spoken by MacbethIn context
- Motivation & Goals
- Power
What say you? It is useless? Ay, I know
But who fights ever hoping for success?
I fought for lost cause, and for fruitless quest!
Edmond Rostand1868–1918Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), Act V: Cyrano’s Gazette, Scene VI, spoken by CyranoIn context
- Courage
- Failure
Where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great
Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527The Prince (1532), Chapter XXVIIn context
- Motivation & Goals
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Business
- Work