Quote

There is a legend that when God was equipping man for his long life journey of exploration, the attendant good angel was about to add the gift of contentment and complete satisfaction. The Creator stayed his hand and said, 'No, if you bestow that upon him you will rob him forever of all joy of self-discovery.'

Orison Swett Marden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Orison Swett Marden
Age: 75 †
Born: 1848
Born: June 11
Died: 1924
Died: March 10
Author
Medical Writer
Philosopher
Physician Writer
Poet Lawyer
Writer
New Hampshire
United States
O. Swett Marden
Forever
Satisfaction
Bestow
Upon
Complete
Legend
Hands
Angel
Legends
Self
Discovery
Stayed
Long
Gift
Exploration
Journey
Contentment
Good
Joy
Add
Equipping
Men
Hand
Creator
Attendant
Life

More quotes by Orison Swett Marden

Image
Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
We fail to see that we can control our destiny make ourselves do whatever is possible make ourselves become whatever we long to be.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
It is certain that the greatest poets, orators, statesmen, and historians, men of the most brilliant and imposing talents, have labored as hard, if not harder, than day laborers and that the most obvious reason why they have been superior to other men is that they have taken more pains than other men.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
No young man starting in life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit, support him in every great effort, and make him what, unaided, he could never be. Friends of the right sort will help him more - to be happy and successful - than much money.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Let us open up our natures, throw wide the doors of our hearts and let in the sunshine of good will and kindness.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
The greatest trouble with most of us is that our demands upon ourselves are so feeble, the call upon the great within of us so weak and intermittent that it makes no impression upon the creative energies it lacks the force that transmutes desires into realities.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Your outlook upon life, your estimate of yourself, your estimate of your value are largely colored by your environment. Your whole career will be modified, shaped, molded by your surroundings, by the character of the people with whom you come in contact every day.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Character is a mark cut upon something, and this indelible mark determines the only true value of all people and all their work.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
To many a man, and sometimes to a youth, there comes the opportunity to choose between honorable competence and tainted wealth. The young man who starts out to be poor and honorable, holds in his hand one of the strongest elements of success.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
To have done no man a wrong...to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, with nothing between your desire and its gratification but the invisible law of rectitude-this is to be a man.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Make every occasion a great occasion, for you can never tell who may be taking your measure for a higher place.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Fear is a great robber of power. It paralyzes the thinking faculties, ruins spontaneity, enthusiasm, and self confidence. It has a blighting effect upon all one's thoughts, moods, and efforts. It destroys ambition and efficiency.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
No man can be ideally successful until he has found his place. Like a locomotive he is strong on the track, but weak anywhere else.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
We lift ourselves by our thought.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
Begin where you are work where you are the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far off success may be crowded with grand possibilities.
Orison Swett Marden
Image
We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your ideal of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success.
Orison Swett Marden