Orison Swett Marden

There is no doubt that aspiration and success tend to prolong life. Prosperity tends to longevity, if we do not wear life away or burn it out in…

Among miners in some sections over six hundred out of a thousand die from consumption. In the prisons of Europe, where the fatal effects of bad air…

According to a long series of investigations by Drs. Benoysten and Lombard into occupations or trades where workers must inhale dust, it appears that…

In choosing an occupation, cleanliness, pure air, sunlight, and freedom from corroding dust and poisonous gases are of the greatest importance. A man…

Man's faculties and functions are so interrelated that whatever affects one affects all. Athletes who over-develop the muscular system do so at the…

Vigorous thought must come from a fresh brain. We cannot expect nerve, snap, robustness and vigor, sprightliness and elasticity, in the speech, in…

Brain-workers cannot do good, effective work in one line many hours a day. When the brain is weary, when it begins to lose its elasticity and…

Cessation of brain activity does not necessarily constitute brain rest, as most great thinkers know. The men who accomplish the most brain-work,…

As a rule, physical vigor is the condition of a great career. What would Gladstone have accomplished with a weak, puny physique? He addresses an…

All occupations that enervate, paralyze, or destroy body or soul should be avoided. Our manufacturing interests too often give little thought to…

The moment we compel those we employ to do work that demoralizes them or does not tend to elevate or lift them, we are forcing them into service…

Ruskin says that the tendency of the age is to expend its genius in perishable art, _as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in bonfires_.…

Select a clean, useful, honorable occupation. If there is any doubt on this point, abandon it at once, for _familiarity with a bad business will make…

Many a man has dwarfed his manhood, cramped his intellect, crushed his aspiration, blunted his finer sensibilities, in some mean, narrow occupation…

Dr. Matthews says that "to no other cause, perhaps, is failure in life so frequently to be traced as to a mistaken calling." We can often find out by…

How many men have been made ridiculous for life by choosing law or medicine or theology, simply because they are "honorable professions"! These men…

Thousands of youths receive an education that fits them for a profession which they have not the means or inclination to follow, and that unfits them…

"Tompkins forsakes his last and awl For literary squabbles; Styles himself poet; but his trade Remains the same,--he cobbles."

Don't choose a profession or occupation because your father, or uncle, or brother is in it. Don't choose a business because you inherit it, or…

When we try to do that for which we are unfitted we are not working along the line of our strength, but of our weakness; our will power and…

How it shortens the road to success to make a wise choice of one's occupation early, to be started on the road of a proper career while young, full…

Those who fail are, as a rule, those who are out of their places. _A man out of his place is but half a man; his very nature is perverted_. He is…

The best way to choose an occupation is to ask yourself the question, "What would my government do with me if it were to consider scientifically my…

The time will come when there will be institutions for determining the natural bent of the boy and girl; where men of large experience and close…

After once choosing your occupation, however, never look backward; stick to it with all the tenacity you can muster. Let nothing tempt you or…

The world does not dictate _what_ you shall do, but it does demand that you do _something_, and that you shall be a king in your line. There is no…

"Do not, I beseech you," said Garfield, "be content to enter on any business that does not require and compel constant intellectual growth." Choose…

Power and constant growth toward a higher life are the great end of human existence. Your calling should be the great school of life, the great…

"Constant engagement in traffic and barter has no elevating influence," says Lyndall. "The endeavor to obtain the upper hand of those with whom we…

Choose upward, study the men in the vocation you think of adopting. Does it elevate those who follow it? Are they broad, liberal, intelligent men? Or…

Go to the bottom if you would get to the top. Be master of your calling in all its details. Nothing is small which concerns your business.

Thousands of men who have been failures in life have done drudgery enough in half a dozen different occupations to have enabled them to reach great…

Beware of that frequently fatal gift, versatility. Many a person misses being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. Universality is the…

"The measure of a man's learning will be the amount of his voluntary ignorance," said Thoreau. If we go into a factory where the mariner's compass is…

Give your life, your energy, your enthusiasm, all to the highest work of which you are capable. Canon Farrar said, "There is only one real failure in…

The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation; and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine. . . .…

"There was not enough room for us all in Frankfort," said Nathan Mayer Rothschild, in speaking of himself and his four brothers. "I dealt in…

"I hope," said a listener, "that your children are not too fond of money and business to the exclusion of more important things. I am sure you…

"I am sure I would wish that," said Rothschild; "I wish them to give mind, and soul, and heart, and body, and everything to business; that is the way…

"Goods removed, messages taken, carpets beaten, and poetry composed on any subject," was the sign of a man in London who was not very successful at…

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…

If you ask one of them to state his aim and purpose in life, he will say: "I hardly know yet for what I am best adapted, but I am a thorough believer…

"What a immense power over the life," says Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, "is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look,…

"When I was young I used to think it was thunder that killed men," said a shrewd preacher; "but as I grew older, I found it was lightning. So I…

If a salamander be cut in two, the front part will run forward and the other backward. Such is the progress of him who divides his purpose. Success…

No one can pursue a worthy object steadily and persistently with all the powers of his mind, and yet make his life a failure. You can't throw a…

The giants of the race have been men of concentration, who have struck sledgehammer blows in one place until they have accomplished their purpose.…

"The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every study and pursuit is the quality of attention," said Charles Dickens.…

"I go at what I am about," said Charles Kingsley, "as if there was nothing else in the world for the time being. That's the secret of all…

Many a man fails to become a great man by splitting into several small ones, choosing to be a tolerable Jack-of-all-trades rather than to be an…

S. T. Coleridge possessed marvelous powers of mind, but he had no definite purpose; he lived in an atmosphere of mental dissipation which consumed…

Every great man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel.

Hogarth would rivet his attention upon a face and study it until it was photographed upon his memory, when he could reproduce it at will. He…

With an immense procession passing up Broadway, the streets lined with people, and bands playing lustily, Horace Greeley would sit upon the steps…

As Adams suggests, Lord Brougham, like Canning, had too many talents; and, though as a lawyer he gained the most splendid prize of his profession,…

Fowell Buxton attributed his success to ordinary means and extraordinary application, and being a whole man to one thing at a time. It is ever the…

The young man seeking a position to-day is not asked what college he came from or who his ancestors were. "_What can you do?_" is the great question.…

As a rule, what the heart longs for the head and the hands may attain. The currents of knowledge, of wealth, of success, are as certain and fixed…

"Never study on speculation," says Waters; "all such study is vain. Form a plan; have an object; then work for it, learn all you can about it, and…

Definiteness of aim is characteristic of all true art. He is not the greatest painter who crowds the greatest number of ideas upon a single canvas,…