The great difference between those who succeed and those who fail does not consist in the amount of work done by each but in the amount of intelligent work. Many of those who fail most ignominiously do enough to achieve grand success but they labor haphazardly at whatever they are assigned, building up with one hand to tear down with the other. They do not grasp circumstances and change them into opportunities. They have no faculty for turning honest defeats into telling victories. With ability enough and ample time, the major ingredients of success, they are forever throwing back and forth an empty shuttle and the real web of their life is never woven.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Concentration, Success, Work
In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedes all others, is—“I will form good habits and become their slaves.”
—Og Mandino
Topics: Great, Good, Habit
Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find “tomorrow” on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday’s defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, “If I had my life to live over again. “Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day! Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Understanding, Problems, Life and Living, Kindness
Take the attitude of a student: never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Attitude
Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is… the highway to success.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Character
Each misfortune you encounter will carry in it the seed of tomorrow’s good luck.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Luck
You will achieve grand dream, a day at a time, so set goals for each day—not long and difficult projects, but chores that will take you, step by step, toward your rainbow. Write them down, if you must, but limit your list so that you won’t have to drag today’s undone matters into tomorrow. Remember that you cannot build your pyramid in twenty-four hours. Be patient. Never allow your day to become so cluttered that you neglect your most important goal—to do the best you can, enjoy this day, and rest satisfied with what you have accomplished.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Dreams
I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I do this? Henceforth will I look on all things with love and I will be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will welcome happiness for it enlarges my heart; yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due; yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Heart, Opportunity, Light, Happiness, Stars
Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Adversity
Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!
—Og Mandino
Topics: Celebration, Progress
Every memorable act in the history of the world is a triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it because it gives any challenge or any occupation a new meaning, no matter how frightening or difficult. Without enthusiasm you are doomed to a life of mediocrity but with it you can accomplish miracles.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Enthusiasm
Opportunities, many times, are so small that we glimpse them not and yet they are often the seeds of great enterprises. Opportunities are also everywhere and so you must always let your hook be hanging. When you least expect it, a great fish will swim by.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Opportunity
Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Appreciation
The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Excellence
I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Manners
It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Goals, Concentration
One of the great undiscovered joys of life comes from doing everything one attempts to the best of one’s ability. There is a special sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work, a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in its parts, which the superficial person who leaves his or her work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition, can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns any work into art. The smallest task, well done, becomes a miracle of achievement.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Excellence
Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
—Og Mandino
Remember that the most difficult tasks are consummated, not by a single explosive burst of energy or effort, but by the constant daily application of the best you have within you.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Excellence, Effort, Goodness, Action, Kindness, Virtue
The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Success, Service, Love
Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better … or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Obstacles, Difficulty, Opposition
There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Adversity
Each day is a special gift from God, and while life may not always be fair, you must never allow the pains, hurdles, and handicaps of the moment to poison your attitude and plans for yourself and your future. You can never win when you wear the ugly cloak of self-pity, and the sour sound of whining will certainly frighten away any opportunity for success. Never again. There is a better way.
—Og Mandino
Topics: The Present, Present
Do all things with love.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Love
Build this day on a foundation of pleasant thoughts. Never fret at any imperfections that you fear may impede your progress. Remind yourself, as often as necessary, that you are a creature of God and have the power to achieve any dream by lifting up your thoughts. You can fly when you decide that you can. Never consider yourself defeated again. Let the vision in your heart be in your life’s blueprint. Smile!
—Og Mandino
Topics: Thoughts, Thinking, Thought
Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Laughter
Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Love
The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Accomplishment, Success, Goals
To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Confidence, Thinking, Inaction, Fear, Procrastination, Getting Going, Anxiety, Bravery, Courage
Work as though you would live forever, and live as though you would die today. Go another mile!
—Og Mandino
Topics: Service
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Chuck Yeager American Aviator
- Joseph Heller American Novelist
- Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
- Freeman Dyson American Physicist, Author
- Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) American Children’s Books Writer
- Vernon Howard American Philosopher
- Barry Goldwater American Elected Representative
- James Maitland Stewart American Film Actor
- Tom Landry American Football Coach
- Robert S. Johnson American Business Executive
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