This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The political leaders with whom we are familiar generally aspire to be superstars rather than heroes. The distinction is crucial. Superstars strive for approbation; heroes walk alone. Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the judgment of a future they see it as their task to bring about. Superstars seek success in a technique for eliciting support; heroes pursue success as the outgrowth of inner values." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"The spirit of policy and that of bureaucracy are diametrically opposed… The essence of bureaucracy is its quest for safety; its success is calculability. Profound policy thrives on perpetual creation, on a constant redefinition of goals. Good administration thrives on routine, the definition of relationships which can survive mediocrity. Policy involves an adjustment of risks; administration, an avoidance of deviation." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours... If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; there is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, that is your success." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well and doing well whatever you do without a thought of fame. If it comes out a thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is a last year’s nest, from which the bird has flown." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of success of any sort." - Henry Ward Beecher
"It is not the going out of port, but the coming in that determines the success of a voyage." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest, from which the bird has flown." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Success surely comes with conscience in the long run, other things being equal. Capacity and fidelity are commercially profitable qualities." - Henry Ward Beecher
"It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage." - Henry Ward Beecher
"One’s best success comes after their greatest disappointments." - Henry Ward Beecher
"Goodness is always an asset. A man who is straight, friendly and useful may never be famous, but he is respected and liked by all who know him. He has laid a sound foundation for success and he will have a worthwhile life." - Herbert Newton Casson
"Ten Success Rules: Put success before amusement. Learn something every day. Cut free from routine. Concentrate on net profits. Make your services known. Never worry over trifles. Shape your decisions quickly. Acquire skill and technique. Deserve loyalty and co-operation. Value character above all." - Herbert Newton Casson
"Every great success has always been achieved by fight. Every winner has scars... The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and willpower to develop themselves." - Herbert Newton Casson
"No man is ever full fed with success." - Herodotus NULL
"The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in business. You've got to keep working that talent." - Irving Berlin, pseudonymn for Israel Baline
"Realizing that no simple formulas apply to everyone, we develop the courage to live a unique spiritual life, in our own idiosyncratic way. While archetypal patterns exist to guide seekers, in the West individuals can find their won way within these deeper patterns by honoring their unique backgrounds, temperaments, values and creative capacities... We commit ourselves to passionate action in the world, without becoming overly attached to the success or failure of our endeavors... In spiritual maturity, recognizing that such an attitude of indifference stems from a fear of life, we commit to our spouses, professions, and social action, developing compassion and equanimity through a balanced engagement with life." - Jack Kornfield
"Of all the passions, jealously is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is to watch the success of our enemy; its wages to be sure of it." - James Bryant Conant
"A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation. A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman for that of his country. The statesman wishes to steer, while the politician is satisfied to drift." - James Freeman Clarke
"Failure teaches success." - Japanese Proverbs
"Failure is the source of success." - Japanese Proverbs
"Success often comes to those who dare and act; it seldom goes to the timid who are ever afraid of the consequences." - Jawaharlal Nehru
"Four things are required to develop generosity of spirit: (1) The intention to serve God in all our affairs. (2) The belief that if that intention is honored, the Universe will provide all that is required materially and spiritually for our success. (3) The understanding that we receive as we give, and that our own creativity is enhanced through mentoring others. (4) Practical groundedness. God can’t deliver the lottery jackpot unless we buy a ticket!" - Joan Borysenko
"The secret of success in life is known only to those who have not succeeded." - John Churton Collins
"Character is the real foundation of all worthwhile success." - John Hays Hammond
"Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid." - John Keats
"Albeit failure in any cause produces a correspondent misery in the soul, yet it is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully eschew." - John Keats
"[The] men of the technostructure are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
"These men of the technostructure are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
"Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life, the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim." - John Ruskin
"If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius." - Joseph Addison
"Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one the second time." - Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek
"Success or failure, the truth of life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention." - Julia Cameron
"By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged class in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed." - Lewis Mumford
"[Human progress] unites the person and the community; and one is not less necessary than the other. For without the social process the individual effort would be lost, and without the individual bid for freedom society would be curbed and confined, as most historic civilizations have in fact been confined, by its very success." - Lewis Mumford
"Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies." - Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
"Remember that adversity presents us with numerous possibilities for success, if we are just willing to see them." - Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
"Will opens the door to success, both brilliant and happy." - Louis Pasteur
"Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call for our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom." - M. Scott Peck, fully Morgan Scott Peck
"Failure is success if we learn from it." - Malcolm S. Forbes, fully Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Sr.
"Salvation is the only real success... God’s holiness is expressed in His love. Therefore love is wholeness, and to love is to fulfill - to fill full - God’s law, and be right all round. Learn then to love God and your brother and all things great and small. Life is our “chance of learning love.”" - Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
"One of the commonest mistakes and one of the costliest thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic - something or other which we do not possess. Success is generally due to holding one, and failure to letting go. You decide to learn a language, study music, take a course of reading, train yourself physically. Will it be success or failure? It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word “decide” contains. The decision that nothing can overrule, the grip that nothing can detach will bring success." - Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
"I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings." - Margaret Mead
"Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses." - Marilyn vos Savant, born Marilyn Mach