Orison Swett Marden

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

You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him? What did he get out of them?

Mirth is God's medicine; everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety-all the rust of life- ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth.

The man who has no money is poor, but one who has nothing but money is poorer. He only is rich who can enjoy without owning; he is poor who though he have millions is covetous.

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

There is no law by which one can, as long as he thinks he can't.

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

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.

Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. . . . What he at first chooses, at last compels.

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.