Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Orison Swett Marden

American Medical Doctor, Attorney, Hotel Owner and Prolific Writer associated with the New Thought Movement

"Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great."

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

"If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place."

"The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably thought and act."

"The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of other; it is in yourself alone."

"All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim; have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible."

"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."

"If you would succeed in life, it is of first importance that your individuality, your independence, your determination be trained that you not be lost in the crowd."

"Live and let live is not enough; live and help live is not too much."

"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."

"Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career.Analyzing what you haven't got as well as what you have is a necessary ingredient of a career."

"Be larger than your task."

"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 desire."

"The moment a man ceases to progress, to grow higher, wider and deeper, then his life becomes stagnant."

"A strong, successful man is not the victim of his environment. He creates favorable conditions. His own inherent force and energy compel things to turn out as he desires."

"A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everyone around us. "

"The strong man, the positive, decisive man who has a program and is determined to carry it out, cuts his way to his goal regardless of difficulties. It is the discouraged man who turns aside and takes a crooked path."

"A good system shortens the road to the goal."

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

"Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action."

"Every germ of goodness will at last struggle into bloom and fruitage... true success follows every right step."

"Begin where you are; work where you are; the hour, which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success, may be crowded with grand possibilities"

"Doing common things uncommonly well."

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

"Existence without an aim, without a worthy purpose, is worse than wasted."

"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!"

"Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do. "

"Every youth owes it to himself and to the world to make the most possible out of the stuff that is in him."

"Every experience in life, everything with which we have come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting away at our life statue, molding, modifying, shaping it. We are part of all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt, or thought has had its hand in molding us, shaping us."

"Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes - every form of animate or inanimate existence leaves its impress upon the soul of man."

"Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened."

"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. "

"If we put the emphasis upon the right things, if we live the life that is worthwhile and then fail, we will survive all disasters, we will out-live all misfortune. We should be so well balanced and symmetrical, that nothing which could ever happen could."

"It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world."

"It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind."

"It is certain that the greatest poets, orators, statesmen and historians, men of the most brilliant and imposing talents, have labored as hard, if not harder, than day laborers; and that the most obvious reason why they have been superior to other me."

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

"It is what we do easily and what we like to do that we do well."

"Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands that whatever you do shall bear the hallmark of excellence."

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

"Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands, stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark."

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. "

"Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory."

"Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. "

"No man is beaten until his hope is annihilated, his confidence gone. As long as a man faces life hopefully, confidently, triumphantly, he is not a failure; he is not beaten until he turns his back on life."

"No employer today is independent of those about him. He cannot succeed alone, no matter how great his ability or capital. Business today is more than ever a question of cooperation."

"No man fails who does his best."

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

"Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world."

"No young man starting in life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit, support him in every great effort, and make him what, unaided, he could never be. Friends of the right sort will help him more - to be happy and successful - than much money."