Success is the sum of small efforts.
I will act now. I will act now. I will act
now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until
the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows
becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can
condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success…. I will act
now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the
lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not
a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will
become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the
place. I am the person. The world cares very little about what a man
or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts. When one door closes another door opens. But
we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not
see the ones which open for us People may doubt what you say, but they will
believe what you do. There are those who travel and those who are
going somewhere. They are different and yet they are the same. The success has
this over his rivals: He knows where he is going. You can succeed if nobody else believes it,
but you will never succeed if you don’t believe in yourself. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence,
then, is not an act, but a habit. If you hit every time, the target is too
near or too big. For true success ask yourself these four
questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now? A “No” uttered from deepest conviction is
better and greater than a “Yes” merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to
avoid trouble. There is little difference in people, but
that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is
attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. When we walk to the edge of all the light we
have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that
one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on
or we will be taught to fly. Twenty years from now you will be more
disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- Og Mandino
- Brooker T.Washington
- Alexander Graham Bell
- Lewis Cass
- Mark Caine
- William J.H. Boetcker
- Aristotle
- Tom Hirshfield
- James Allen
- Mahatma Gandhi
- W. Clement Stone
- Frank Outlaw
- Mark Twain
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Franklin D. Roosevelt