An Iron Will

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education,” it was said by Professor Huxley, “is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson which he learns thoroughly.” Doing””

— Orison Swett Marden

“The world takes us at our own valuation. It believes in the man who believes in himself, but it has little use for the timid man, the one who is never certain of himself; who cannot rely on his own judgment, who craves advice from others, and is afraid to go ahead on his own account.””

— Orison Swett Marden

“Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes, is but perseverance in disguise.””

— Orison Swett Marden

“Genius unexecuted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.””

— Orison Swett Marden

“It is," says Professor Mathews, "only by continued, strenuous efforts, repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything else.””

— Orison Swett Marden

“When I don't know whether to fight or not, I always fight.””

— Orison Swett Marden

“The man without self-reliance and an iron will is the plaything of chance, the puppet of his environment, the slave of circumstances.””

— Orison Swett Marden

“There are three kinds of people in the world," says a recent writer, "the wills, the won'ts, and the can'ts. The first accomplish everything; the second oppose everything; the third fail in everything.””

— Orison Swett Marden

“Governor Seymour of New York, a man of great force and character, said, in reviewing his life: "If I were to wipe out twenty acts, what should they be? Should it be my business mistakes, my foolish acts (for I suppose all do foolish acts occasionally), my grievances? No; for, after all, these are the very things by which I have profited. So I finally concluded I should expunge, instead of my mistakes, my triumphs. I could not afford to dismiss the tonic of mortification, the refinement of sorrow; I needed them every one.””

— Orison Swett Marden