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Financial Quotes

Success Quotes

  • "GDP just measures output; whether that is good output, like medical equipment, or bad, like cigarettes, and treats them just the same … Time, love, compassion, co-operation, happiness and sustainability find no echo in this dry utilitarian measure of success."
    Neal Lawson (1963–), British journalist and author
    Source: Observer (London) (September 20, 2009)
  • "To be successful, you need leisure. You need time hanging heavily on your hands."
    George Soros (1930–), Hungarian-born US financier, entrepreneur, and philanthropist
    Source: Quoted in Becoming Rich (Mark Tier, 2005)
  • "A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."
    Bob Dylan (1941–), US singer-songwriter
    Source: Quoted in How to Survive and Succeed in the Music Industry (Teri Saccone, 2003)
  • "I am successful because I have always been a tortoise. I did not come from a rich family. I was not smart in school. I did not finish school. I am not particularly talented. Yet, I am far richer than most people simply because I did not stop."
    Robert Kiyosaki (1947–), US author
    Source: Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich (2002)
  • "People who are successful simply want it more than people who are not."
    Ian Schrager (1946–), US entrepreneur
    Source: Sunday Times (London) (May 2000)
  • "I have worked without thinking of myself. This is the largest factor in whatever success I have attained."
    Amadeo Giannini (1870–1949), US banker and founder of Bank of America
    Source: Quoted in “America's Banker,” Time 100: Heroes and Inspirations (December 1999)
  • "Success is made of 99% failure."
    Sir James Dyson (1947–), British designer and entrepreneur
    Source: Management Today (July 1999)
  • "It takes years to make an overnight success."
    Eddie Cantor (1892–1964), US entertainer
    Source: Quoted in Treasury of Investment Wisdom (Bernice Cohen, 1999)
  • "I believe in the value of paranoia. Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. The more successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your business and then another chunk and then another until there is nothing left."
    Andrew S. Grove (1936–), Hungarian-born US entrepreneur, author, and former chairman of Intel Corporation
    Source: Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company and Career (1996), Preface
  • "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."
    Bill Gates (1955–), US entrepreneur, cofounder and chairman of Microsoft
    Source: The Road Ahead (1995)
  • "God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try."
    Mother Teresa (1910–1997), Albanian missionary
    Source: Quoted in Rolling Stone (December 1992)
  • "The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you."
    Anthony Robbins (1960–), US motivational writer and speaker
    Source: Awaken the Giant Within (1992)
  • "The secret of the truly successful … is that they learned early in life how not to be busy."
    Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–), US writer, sociologist, and feminist
    Source: “The Cult of Busyness,” The Worst Years of Our Lives (1991)
  • "I've always realised that if I'm doing well at business I'm cutting some other bastard's throat."
    Kerry Packer (1937–2005), Australian entrepreneur and chairman of Consolidated Press Holdings
    Source: Daily Mail (London) (November 1, 1988)
  • "If you do anything just for the money you don't succeed."
    Barry Hearn (1948–), British sports promoter
    Source: Sunday Telegraph (London) (April 10, 1988)
  • "When you struggle hard and lose money, you're a hero. When you start making money you become a capitalist swine."
    Sir Terence Conran (1931–), British designer, restaurateur, and founder of Habitat
    Source: Quoted in The Risk Takers (Jeffrey Robinson, 1985)
  • "To be successful you have to be lucky, or a little mad, or very talented, or to find yourself in a rapid-growth field."
    Edward de Bono (1933–), Maltese-born British creative-thinking theorist, educator, and writer
    Source: Tactics: The Art and Science of Success (1984)
  • "Eighty percent of success is showing up."
    Woody Allen (1935–), US actor, humorist, movie producer, and director
    Source: Quoted in In Search of Excellence (Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, 1982)
  • "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."
    Gore Vidal (1925–), US novelist and critic
    Source: Attributed (December 1976)
  • "For a writer, success is always temporary, success is only a delayed failure. And it is incomplete."
    Graham Greene (1904–1991), British novelist
    Source: A Sort of Life (1971)
  • "If at first you don't succeed, you may be at your level of incompetence."
    Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990), Canadian academic and writer
    Source: The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong (cowritten with Raymond Hull, 1969)
  • "She knows there's no success like failure and that failure's no success at all."
    Bob Dylan (1941–), US singer-songwriter
    Song lyric.
    Source: “Love Minus Zero, No Limits” (1965)
  • "I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless."
    Bette Davis (1908–1989), US actor
    Source: The Lonely Life (1962)
  • "The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success."
    Irving Berlin (1888–1989), US composer and songwriter
    Source: Quoted in Theater Arts (1958)
  • "Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things."
    T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), US-born British poet, dramatist, and critic
    Source: The Family Reunion (1939)
  • "The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them for the most part humble, tolerant and kind."
    W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965), British novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist
    Source: The Summing Up (1938)
  • "Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising."
    Cyril Connolly (1903–1974), British critic, essayist, and novelist
    Source: Enemies of Promise (1938)
  • "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate."
    Samuel Butler (1835–1902), British writer
    Source: Men-Minutes-Money (1934)
  • "The conduct of successful business merely consists in doings things in a very simple way, doing them regularly, and never neglecting to do them."
    Lord Leverhulme (William Hesketh Lever) (1851–1925), British entrepreneur, philanthropist, and cofounder of Unilever
    Source: Speech, Liverpool University (1922)
  • "The test of a first-rate work, and a test of your sincerity in calling it a first-rate work, is that you finish it."
    Arnold Bennett (1867–1931), British novelist, playwright, and essayist
    Source: Things That Have Interested Me (1921–1925)
  • "A minute's success pays the failure of years."
    Robert Browning (1812–1889), British poet
    Source: “Apollo and the Fates” (1886), st. 42
  • "Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result."
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Irish writer and wit
    Source: Letter (1883)
  • "The secret of success is concentration … Taste everything a little, look at everything a little; but live for one thing."
    Olive Schreiner (1855–1920), South African novelist and social critic
    Source: The Story of an African Farm (1883)
  • "To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."
    Walter Pater (1839–1894), British author and critic
    Source: Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873)
  • "The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgements—success."
    Edmund Burke (1729–1797), British philosopher and politician
    Source: Letter to a member of the National Assembly (1791)
  • "Tis not in mortals to command success
    But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it.    "
    Joseph Addison (1672–1719), British statesman and author
    Source: Cato (1713)
  • "The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration."
    Confucius (551–479 bc), Chinese philosopher, administrator, and writer
    Source: Analects (500? bc)
  • "To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them."
    Aristotle Onassis (1906–1975), Greek shipowner and financier
    Source: Attributed

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