Theme
Success
Achievement, winning, and what it really costs.
Every quote here is provenance-checked. AI will happily put a fake quote on a beautiful slide — these are the ones you can actually use, with the right name on them.
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Verified quotes about success
Each is traced to a real source and correctly credited. ✓ Free to use = public domain, cleared for commercial reuse. Open one for a paste-ready credit line and its reuse status.
“A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall”
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”
“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance”
“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort”
“He has half the deed done who has made a beginning”
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse”
“I came, I saw, I conquered”
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed”
“I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed”
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours”
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope”
“Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy”
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached as by the obstacles overcome”
“That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”
“They can because they think they can”
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”
“Energy and persistence conquer all things”
“Eureka! I have found it!”
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way”
“I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was”
“I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger”
“It's kind of fun to do the impossible”
“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”
“Never was anything great achieved without danger”
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, and sacrifice”
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle”
“Victory belongs to the most persevering”
“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community”
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Don’t get caught out
Commonly shared about success — but misattributed
Popular success lines that get pinned on the wrong name. If you use one, credit it correctly.
“A sex symbol is a heavy load to carry when one is tired, hurt and bewildered”
ReallyClara Bow · not Marilyn Monroe
“Believe in yourself and all that you are”
ReallyChristian D. Larson · not Christian D. Larson
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door”
ReallyRalph Waldo Emerson · not Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, working together is success”
ReallyEdward Everett Hale
“Failure is not an option”
ReallyWilliam Broyles Jr. & Al Reinert · not Gene Kranz
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”
ReallyDrew “Bundini” Brown
“Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world”
ReallyBette Midler · not Marilyn Monroe
“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever”
ReallyNapoleon Bonaparte
“Greed is good”
ReallyStanley Weiser & Oliver Stone
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work”
ReallyThomas Edison · not Thomas Edison
“If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it”
ReallyJesse Jackson · not Muhammad Ali
“If you can dream it, you can do it”
ReallyTom Fitzgerald · not Walt Disney
“If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly”
ReallyEarliest known use: George Hyde Preston, 1908 (QI unsure if he coined it) · not Mahatma Gandhi
“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”
ReallyColeman Cox · not Thomas Jefferson
“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment”
ReallyTextbook authors of “Civilization Past and Present” · not Charles Darwin
“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings”
ReallyC. Archie Danielson
“It always seems impossible until it's done”
ReallyNo single author — a proverb Mandela never sourced
“Know yourself and you will win all battles”
ReallySun Tzu