Eighty percent of success is showing up.
- Woody Allen. In Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies, 5 (epigraph), 1982
It took me twenty years to become an overnight success.
- Eddie Cantor
The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what it is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.
- Henry Ford. “Success,” Forum, October 1928
Success means only doing what you do well [and] letting someone else do the rest.
- Goldstein’s Truism. In John Peers, comp., 1,001 Logical Laws, p. 15, 1979
Success is ten percent opportunity and ninety percent intelligent hustle.
- Elbert Hubbard. In Alice Hubbard, comp., An American Bible, p. .251, 1946
Find a need and fill it.
- Henry J. Kaiser
In order to succeed in the world people do their utmost to appear successful.
- La Rochefoucauld. Maxims, 56, 1665, tr. Leonard Tancock, 1959
There are but two ways of rising in the world: either by your own industry or by the folly of others.
- La Bruyere. “Of the Gifts of Fortune” (52), The Characters, 1688, tr. Henri van Laun, 1929
The problem with success is that its formula is the same as the one for ulcers.
- Laurence J. Peter. 28 August, Peter’s Almanac, 1982
Don’t try to go too fast. Learn your job. Don’t ever talk until you know what you’re talking about…. If you want to get along, go along.
- Sam Rayburn. Texas speaker of the House of Representatives. In Neil MacNeil, Forge of Democracy: the House of Representatives, 6, 1963
Success is what people settle for when they can’t think of something noble enough to be worth failing at.
- Laurence Shames. 12 April 1986
Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you an’t be promoted.
- Upward-Mobility Rule. In Paul Dickson, comp., The Official Explanations, p. 227, 1980
The best career advice to give the young is “Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.”
- Katharine Whitehorn. In Observer, 1975
Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.
- Marianne Williamson. “Work,” A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles, 1992
The chief factor in any man’s success or failure must be his own character.
- Theodore Roosevelt. “National Duties,” 2 September 1901, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses, 1905
