Orison Swett Marden's Best inspiring Image quotes and excerpts from his books

Top Orison Swett Marden's Quotes

Collection of great sayings by a great author for success and self-improvement

Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924) was an American writer associated with the New Thought Movement. He also held a degree in medicine and was a successful hotel owner.

Marden was born in Thornton Gore, New Hampshire to Lewis and Martha Marden. When he was three years old, his mother died at the age of 22, leaving Orison and his two sisters in the care of their father, a farmer, hunter, and trapper. When Orison was seven years old, his father died from injuries incurred while in the woods, and the children were shuttled from one guardian to another, with Orison working as a "hired boy" to earn his keep. Inspired by an early self-help book by the Scottish author Samuel Smiles, which he found in an attic, Marden set out to improve himself and his life circumstances. He persevered in advancing himself and graduated from Boston University in 1871. He later graduated from Harvard with an M.D. in 1881 and an LL.B. degree in 1882. He also studied at the Boston School of Oratory and Andover Theological Seminary.

“The greatest thing a man can possibly do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other. It is not a question of what someone else can do or become which every youth should ask himself, but what can I do? How can I develop myself into the grandest possible manhood?”
― Orison Swett Marden


“It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“Just because you are struggling on a farm or in a factory, doing something against which your whole nature rebels, because there is no one to help you support your aged parents or an invalid brother or sister, do not conclude that your vision must perish. Keep pushing on as best you can, and affirming your divine power to attain your desire. Hundreds and thousands of poor boys and girls with poorer opportunities than yours have done immortal deeds because they had faith in their ideal and in their power to attain it.”
― Orison Swett Marden, How to Get What You Want

“You will find the whole world will change to you when you change your attitude toward it.”
― Orison Swett Marden, Pushing to the Front

“Money, influence, and position are nothing compared with brains, principles, energy and perseverance.”― Orison Swett Marden


“Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do when our habitual thought corresponds with our desires”
― Orison Swett Marden


“Your outlook upon life, your estimate of yourself, your estimate of your value are largely coloured by your environment. Your whole career will be modified, shaped, moulded by your surroundings, by the character of the people whom you come in contact with every day.”
― Orison Swett Marden

“Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them...they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.”
― Orison Swett Marden


“Opportunities? They are all around us ... There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“Believe with all of your heart that you will do what you were made to do.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everyone around us.”
― Orison Swett Marden

Inspirational quote by Orison Swett Marden

“Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“The universe is one great kindergarten. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon our soul.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“We cannot rise higher than our thought of ourselves.”
― Orison Swett Marden

“Don't think you have no chance in life because you have no capital to begin with. Most of the rich men of to-day began poorly. The chances are you would be ruined if you had capital.”

Inspirational quote by Orison Swett Marden

“What keeps so many people back is simply an unwillingness to pay the price, to make the exertion, the effort to sacrifice their ease and comfort.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“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.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“A woman who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes her work with the assurance of success magnetizes her condition. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe.”
― Orison Swett Marden

“The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“Most obstacles melt away when we make up our minds to walk boldly through them.”
― Orison Swett Marden

“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.”
― Orison Swett Marden

“The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is a success, and there is no other.”
― Orison Swett Marden, Learn to Expect a Great Deal of Life

“The little difference between what we earn and what we spend is capital.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”
― Orison Swett Marden

“Success is not measured by what you accomplish but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.”
― Orison Swett Marden




“When we are sure that we are on the right road there is no need to plan our journey too far ahead. No need to burden ourselves with doubts and fears as to the obstacles that may bar our progress. We cannot take more than one step at a time.”
― Orison Swett Marden

“Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.”
― Orison Swett Marden




“Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.”
― Orison Swett Marden



“All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.”
― Orison Swett Marden

Inspirational quote by Orison Swett Marden

Top Orison Swett Marden inspirational quotes New Thought Movement

“Ambition is the spur that makes man struggle with destiny. It is heaven's own incentive to make purpose great and achievement greater.”
― Orison Swett Marden,


“It is not the possession of money that constitutes wealth, that gives the highest satisfaction, and awakens the consciousness of noble achievement, the assurance that one is fulfilling his mission, and that he is reading aright the sealed message which the Creator placed in his hand at birth.”
― Orison Swett Marden