W. Clement Stone (1902–2002) was an American insurance salesman who turned positive-thinking self-help and philanthropist. A self-made billionaire and a political financier as well, he helped fund President Richard Nixon’s Watergate tactics.
Stone was born in Chicago, Illinois; his father died when he was just three, leaving the family penniless. At six, Stone hawked the Chicago Examiner around the streets to help his family pay rent. By 13, he owned a busy newsstand and, by 16, he had saved enough money to move to Detroit, where his mother was working as an insurance agent. He joined her firm and sold low-cost accident and life insurance policies door-to-door. He also became an aficionado of the inspirational writings of Norman Vincent Peale.
Stone became a successful insurance salesman and established a national network of sales associates. He found poorly educated people anxious to better themselves, made them practice a simple sales pitch, and sent them all over America. He built his own company, the Combined Insurance Co. (now part of Aon Corp.)
As the insurance business boomed, Stone turned to preach his philosophy of success to a broader world and started a “Science of Success” course. Advocating what he called “PMA,” Positive Mental Attitude, he founded the monthly magazine Success Unlimited and published several inspirational books such as Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (1960; with Napoleon Hill,) and his autobiographical Success System That Never Fails (1962.)
An evangelical Christian, he donated enormous sums to the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs of America and a range of national educational projects. His political contributions to the 1972 Nixon’s re-election campaign and his prior donation to the 1968 Nixon campaign were cited in Congressional debates after Nixon’s Watergate scandal as a justification for establishing campaign-spending limits.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by W. Clement Stone
There’s a great joy in my giving. It’s thrilling. It’s exhilarating. It’s important to be a part of sharing. It is my love. It is my joy.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Part of The Whole, Sharing, Joy
Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Failures, Mistakes
If you employed study, thinking, and planning time daily, you could develop and use the power that can change the course of your destiny.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Planning
If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Sharing
When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Purpose
All I want to do is change the world.
—W. Clement Stone
Success is achieved and maintained by those who try and keep trying.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Entrepreneurs
Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible. No one can take them. You, and you lone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Abundance
To be happy, make other people happy.
—W. Clement Stone
The natural law of inertia: Matter will remain at rest or continue in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force.
—W. Clement Stone
Be generous! Give to those you love; give to those who love you; give o the fortunate; give to the unfortunate – yes, give especially to those you don’t want to give. You will receive abundance for your giving. The ore you give, the more you will have!
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Abundance
Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Attitude, Belief, Adversity, Choices, Goals, Business, Choice, Desires
Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.
—W. Clement Stone
When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions…
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Self-Control, Control
Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.
—W. Clement Stone
We have a problem. “Congratulations.” But it’s a tough problem. “Then double congratulations.”
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Optimism, Fortune, Mindsets, Positive Attitudes, Worry, Problems
You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.
—W. Clement Stone
So many fail because they don’t get started—they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Beginnings, Action, Failure
Bondage is… subjection to external influences and internal negative thoughts and attitudes.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Freedom
Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman—not the attitude of the prospect.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Shopping
You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success—or are they holding you back?
—W. Clement Stone
I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Vision, Action
Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Thinking, Action
To solve a problem or to reach a goal, you don’t need to know all the answers in advance. But you must have a clear idea of the problem or the goal you want to reach.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Goals, Ideas
To every disadvantage there is a corresponding advantage.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Mindsets, Difficulties, Blessings, Optimism, Silver Linings, Adversity, Positive Attitudes
Keep your mind on your objective, and persist until you succeed. Study, think and plan.
—W. Clement Stone
There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.
—W. Clement Stone
Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.
—W. Clement Stone
No matter how carefully you plan your goals they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Courage, Bravery
When thinking won’t cure fear, action will.
—W. Clement Stone
Topics: Fear, Anxiety
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