Earl Nightingale

Beside my typewriter, I have glued to the wall a great saying by Ernest Hemingway. He said, ‘Write as well as you can and finish what you start.’

Each morning and during the day, ask yourself this question: ‘How can I increase my service today?’ knowing that my rewards in life must be in exact proportion to my service. Now, do this everyday and you’ll have started to form one of life’s most valuable habits.

Every one of us is the sum total of all our thoughts.

Success is really nothing more than the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. This means that any person who knows what they are doing and where they are going is a success. Any person with a goal towards which they are working is a successful person.

It stands to reason that a person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that’s what he’s thinking about. And we become what we think about.

Everything worthwhile achieved by men and women, is a dream come true, a goal reached. It’s been said that what the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

What is it that your original, genetic pattern makes you especially qualified to do, young man and young woman? What do you most want to do? What brings you the greatest joy? Do you know your rewards, all the years of your life, will be determined by the extent of your contribution, your service to others?

What seems to be a cruel world to one person might be filled with challenge and opportunity to another. It is our reaction that makes the difference.

Know full well that if each of your tasks is performed successfully, or at least the greater majority of them, your life has to be successful—there’s no other answer.

Here is the best definition of success I’ve ever been able to find: ‘Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.’

The word “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek word “entheos” which means the God within. And the happiest, most interesting people are those who have found the secret of maintaining their enthusiasm, that God within.

Every time a person admits to himself—usually much later—that he has made a fool of himself, he can trace it to a lack of patience; if he had only waited a while, everything would have been all right.

This is a good test of ideas; it’s also a good test of whether your idea is really the one you’ve been looking for—your big idea: if you’re willing to stake everything you can scrape and borrow on it, maybe it’s a good idea.

Everybody ought to become great at something. What is it that you would give anything to become? Then give it, and you’ll become it.

So decide now. What is it you want? Plant your goal in your mind. It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make in your entire life.

The only people who make money work in a mint. The rest of us must earn money.

We’re no longer competing, we’re creating.

You can relax in the happy knowledge that successful tasks make successful days, which in turn build a successful life.

Don’t forget ‘The Strangest Secret.’ We become what we think about.

Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service. If you don’t like your income, you must devise ways and means of increasing your service.