Introduction

• I’ve loved quotes for a long time and have been collecting quotes that have made an impression on me for at least the last 5 years. I agree with Adam Grant when he said of quotes and aphorisms, “they’re memorable and They give meaning and direction. They spur new thoughts or new actions—or remind us to revisit old ones.”
• The quotes we love and remember are those that we feel speak directly to us, they transcend the individual context in which we see them and provide us a nugget of insight of knowledge we can take forward and apply more broadly to other aspects of our lives.
• The construction of the quote also plays a big part on which quotes last for generations while others, which have the same core message or meaning, are quickly forgotten. For example, a study in 2000 found that people preferred rhyming quotes.
• While I’ve been collecting quotes for a number of years, it wasn’t until recently that I decided to organise them into different themes. The primary driver for doing this was I realised that because my list was so long there were quotes which I’d forgotten about, but when I rediscovered them still strongly resonated with me. Therefore, I thought that grouping the quotes into themes would (a) give me the opportunity to revisit all the quotes I’d captured and (b) help me find the ‘right’ quote I need depending on the motivation, meaning and direction I need in a particular moment.
• After a lot of thinking and testing different ways to categorise the quotes, I came up with the following 7 themes. You won’t be surprised that these themes align closely – although not directly – with the topics of this blog.
  1. To Live A Good Life
  2. Success
  3. Health & Nutrition
  4. Investing & Money
  5. Appreciation & Acceptance
  6. Action & Ownership
  7. Miscellaneous
• I will post a blog on each of the above themes in a 7 part series on ‘My Favourite Quotes’. This is the second blog post in this series focused on ‘Success’. For the rest of the posts in the series, please click on the relevant hyperlink above. There is no requirement to read the series in order, just dive into the area which appeals most to you right now.
• You’ll notice when reading the series that each theme has a number of topics, this helps me, and will hopefully help you, find the quotes which best apply to what you’re searching for.
• There is no particular order to the quotes within the themes or topics, I considered ranking the quotes within topics but realised that would be an impossible task. For me, it’s about having a catalogue of quotes available to support me, different quotes will be more applicable in some moments than others.
• I am very aware of how often quotes are misattributed. It’s almost as if when people are in doubt of the attribution of a quote, they assign it to Einstein, Twain, Shakespeare or Edison. I have done my best to attribute quotes correctly, however I cannot be 100% certain, so I apologise in advance of any misattributions.
• I hope you find this series useful, and as a collector of quotations, please include any quotes you love in the comments!

Favourite quotes on Success

Keep Going

• ‘Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm’ – Winston Churchill
• ‘It takes 20 years to make an overnight success’ – Eddie Cantor
• ‘If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.’ – General Melchett played by Stephen Fry in Blackadder
• ‘Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ – Samuel Beckett
• ‘True endurance comes from motivation and belief in what you’re doing’ – Neil Strauss
• ‘Tough times never last, but tough people do.’ Robert H. Schuller

Focus on Others Emotions

• ‘They May forget what you said – but they will never forget how you made them feel.’ – Carl W. Buehner
• ‘A story is about significant events and memorable moments, not about time passing’ – Daniel Kahneman
• ‘If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.’ – Henry Ford

Be Prepared

• ‘If you want peace, prepare for war’ – Roman general Vegetius
• ‘Victory awaits him who has everything in order- luck, people call it’ – Roald Amundsen
• ‘Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances….strong men believe in cause & effect’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ – Winston Churchill
• ‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.’ – Abraham Lincoln
• ‘If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t plan your mission properly.’ – Colonel David Hackworth

Discipline

• ‘If you don’t get what you want, it’s a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price’ – Rudyard Kipling
• ‘Discipline is just remembering what you want’ – David Campbell
• ‘You cannot change what you don’t measure’ – Matt Mullenweg
• ‘What you aim at determines what you see.’ –  Jordan B Peterson
• ‘The most courageous decision that you can make each day is to be in a good mood.’ – Voltaire

Knowledge

• ‘We must, between periods of digging in the dark, endeavour always to transform our tears into knowledge’ – Alain de Botton
• ‘Knowledge has got to be converted to decision/action otherwise it’s worthless’ – Jim Rone
• ‘Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.’ – Albert Einstein
• ‘If you want the answer—ask the question.’ – Lorii Myers
• ‘Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.’ – Confucius
• ‘A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. – Marcus Garvey
• ‘Knowledge is power. And you need power in this world. You need as many advantages as you can get.’ – Ellen DeGeneres

Embrace Change

• ‘There is nothing permanent except change.’ – Heraclitus
• ‘The obstacle is the way’ – Ryan Holiday
• ‘When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.’ – Ben Franklin
• ‘A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it.’ – Chinese Proverb

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