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13 quotes, newest first. New quotes join the top of the page as they are published, and every quote keeps its own page.

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Success Quotes — 13 Famous Success Quotes

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Theodore Roosevelt · From his Labor Day "Square Deal" speech at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, 7 September 1903.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

Bill Gates

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

Booker T. Washington · First printed in his serialised memoir in The Outlook in 1900, then in chapter 2 of Up From Slavery.

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.

Albert Einstein · Recorded by LIFE editor William Miller during a visit to Einstein's Princeton home a few months before his death.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.

Maya Angelou · Said in a 1983 interview with Claudia Tate; Angelou had used almost the same words in a 1970 Los Angeles Times profile.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Colin Powell · The last of Powell's "13 Rules", the leadership maxims he kept on his desk and printed in his memoir.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.

Abraham Lincoln · Advice to Isham Reavis, a young man who had asked to study law under him, in a letter of 5 November 1855.

Genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.

Thomas Edison · Quote Investigator finds Edison quoted with this ratio from 1901 and with "two per cent inspiration" as early as 1898; the familiar spelled-out form appeared in Harper's Monthly in 1932.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

Steve Jobs · From his Stanford commencement address of 12 June 2005, given a year after his first cancer diagnosis.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Often credited to Winston Churchill · Churchill never said it; Quote Investigator traces the idea to a 1938 Budweiser beer advertisement ("success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted") and finds the Churchill credit only from the 1960s.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.

Helen Keller · From her early essay Optimism; often quoted with "and confidence" added, which is not in the text.

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.

Henry David Thoreau · The original behind the popular paraphrase "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined", which Thoreau never wrote.

There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

Oprah Winfrey · Harvard Commencement address, 30 May 2013.

Success Quotes