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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Og Mandino (American Self-Help Author)

Inspirational Quotations by Og Mandino (American Self-Help Author)

Og Mandino (1923–96,) fully Augustine A. Mandino, was an American “sales guru” and self-help author. An insurance salesperson, he is most famous for his book The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968,) which thrust his long career as a leading motivational writer and speaker.

Born in Natick, Massachusetts, Mandino entered the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and was a navigator in numerous German missions. He was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, he did odd jobs, ending up as an insurance salesman for W. Clement Stone, the Chicago insurance executive and writer of motivational books. Mandino soon shifted to write and edit Stone’s house publication, which Mandino turned into a national motivational magazine, Success Unlimited.

Mandino wrote the “Greatest Salesman in the World” as a short story for Success Unlimited. Fred Fell, the owner of a small publishing house called Frederick Fell Publishers, read the story in a dentist’s waiting room, and proposed that Mandino develop it into a book.

In all, Mandino wrote 19 books, which featured lean prose that told simple stories portraying a prosperous and happy life. He sold 30 million copies of his books, which include The Greatest Miracle in the World (2009,) The Greatest Secret in the World (2009,) A Better Way to Live (2010,) and The Choice: A Surprising New Message of Hope (2011.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Og Mandino

Always reward your long hours of labor and toil in the very best way, surrounded by your family. Nurture their love carefully, remembering that your children need models, not critics, and your own progress will hasten when you constantly strive to present your best side to your children. And even if you have failed at all else in the eyes of the world, if you have a loving family, you are a success.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Results

Do all things with love.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Love

Today, and every day, deliver more than you are getting paid to do. The victory of success will be half won when you learn the secret of putting out more than is expected in all that you do. Make yourself so valuable in your work that eventually you will become indispensable. Exercise your privilege to go the extra mile, and enjoy all the rewards you receive. You deserve them!
—Og Mandino
Topics: Excellence

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: Fear, Inaction, Thinking, Bravery, Confidence, Anxiety, Procrastination, Courage, Getting Going

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

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

Each misfortune you encounter will carry in it the seed of tomorrow’s good luck.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Luck

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, Love, Service

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Failure, Determination

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: Progress, Celebration

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

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

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: Opportunity, Happiness, Stars

Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Love

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: Success, Work

It is those who concentrates 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

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish good results while the strongest, by dispersing his effort over many chores, may fail to accomplish anything. Drops of water, by continually falling, hone their passage through the hardest of rocks but the hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar and leaves no trace behind.
—Og Mandino

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Adversity

Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress. The next time you are tempted to boast, just place your fist in a full pail of water, and when you remove it, the hole remaining will give you a correct measure of your importance.
—Og Mandino
Topics: Action

Work as though you would live forever, and live as though you would die today. Go another mile!
—Og Mandino
Topics: Service

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

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

Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.
—Og Mandino

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

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: Habit, Good

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: Difficulty, Obstacles

Never neglect the little things. Never skimp on that extra effort, that additional few minutes, that soft word of praise or thanks, that delivery of the very best that you can do. It does not matter what others think, it is of prime importance, however, what you think about you. You can never do your best, which should always be your trademark, if you are cutting corners and shirking responsibilities. You are special. Act it. Never neglect the little things.
—Og Mandino

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