148 Quotes by Earl Nightingale
Earl Nightingale was a multifaceted personality known for his roles as a motivational speaker, author, and radio personality. His most famous work, "The Strangest Secret," earned him acclaim as one of the pioneers of the personal development and self-help movement. Nightingale's insightful recording emphasized the power of a person's thoughts and beliefs in shaping their reality, effectively becoming a cornerstone of the self-improvement industry.
His resonant voice and wisdom-rich messages attracted a wide audience seeking guidance in their personal and professional lives. By popularizing the idea that individuals could achieve success and happiness by aligning their thoughts with their goals, Nightingale left an enduring impact on the field of motivational speaking and inspired generations to take control of their destinies.
Earl Nightingale Quotes
We tend to live up to our expectations. (Meaning)
A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out. (Quote Meaning)
You must radiate success before it’ll come to you. (Meaning)
The only thing about a man that is a man is his mind. (Quote Meaning)
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. (Meaning)
We become what we think about. (Quote Meaning)
Everything in the world we want to do or get done, we must do with and through people. Every dollar we will ever earn must come from people. The person we love, and with whom we want to spend the rest of our life, is a human being with whom we must interact. Our children are individuals, each different from any other person who ever lived. And what affects them most is our attitude-the loving kindness they see and feel whenever we are around them. If you'll begin to develop and maintain an attitude that says yes to life and the world, you'll be astonished at the changes you'll see. (Meaning)
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal. (Quote Meaning)
People with goals succeed because they know where they're going. (Meaning)
Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations. (Quote Meaning)
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. (Meaning)
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice... it is conformity. (Quote Meaning)
We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service. (Meaning)
One thing a goal must do is fill us with positive emotion when we think about it. The more intensely we feel about a goal the more progressively we’ll move toward it. (Quote Meaning)
Our attitude towards life determines life's attitude towards us. (Meaning)
Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind. (Quote Meaning)
Don’t concern yourself with the money. Be of service -build, work, dream, create! Do this and you’ll find there is no limit to the prosperity and abundance that will come to you. (Meaning)
Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. (Quote Meaning)
We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within. (Meaning)
A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change. (Quote Meaning)
The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. (Meaning)
Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality. (Quote Meaning)
You'll find boredom where there is the absence of a good idea. (Meaning)
Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm. (Quote Meaning)
Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. (Meaning)
All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination. (Quote Meaning)
Problems are challenges to creative minds. Without problems, there would be little reason to think at all. (Meaning)
Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together. (Quote Meaning)
Now, success is not the result of making money; making money is the result of success - and success is in direct proportion to our service. Most people have this law backwards. They believe that you're successful if you earn a lot of money. The truth is that you can only earn money after you're successful. (Meaning)
One hour per day of study in your chosen field is all it takes. One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you'll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.
Always keep that happy attitude. Pretend that you are holding a beautiful fragrant bouquet.
Watch what everyone else does--do the opposite. The majority is always wrong.
The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that’s really worthwhile in life came to us free; our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country. All these priceless possessions are free.
The things that cost us money are actually very cheap and can be replaced at any time. A good man can be completely wiped out and make another fortune. He can do that several times. Even if our home burns down, we can rebuild it. But the things we got for nothing, we can never replace."
Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.
Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.
Achievement requires more than a vision - it takes courage, resolve and tenacity. All you have got to do is plant that seed in your mind, care for it, work steadily toward your goal, and it will become a reality
Control your thoughts. Decide about that which you will think and concentrate upon. You are in charge of your life to the degree you take charge of your thoughts.
Successful people are dreamers who have found a dream too exciting, too important, to remain in the realm of fantasy. Day by day, hour by hour, they toil in the service of their dream until they can see it with their eyes and touch it with their hands.
A great attitude is not the result of success; success is the result of a great attitude.
Each of us must live off the fruit of his thoughts in the future, because what you think today and tomorrow, next month and next year, you will mold your life and determine your future.
You are guided by your mind. (Quote Meaning)
Most people tiptoe their way through life, hoping they make it safely to death.
Successful people are not people without problems. They are people who have learned to solve their problems.
We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.
We must radiate success before it will come to us. We must first become mentally, from an attitude standpoint, the people we wish to become.
A single thought can revolutionize your life as it did mine. A single thought can make you rich or it can land you in prison for the rest of your life.
Preparation for life is so important. Luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity. Opportunity is all around us. Are you prepared?
We can help others in the world more by making the most of yourself than in any other way.
Getting along well with other people is still the world's most needed skill. With it...there is no limit to what person can do. We need people, we need the cooperation of others. There is very little we can do alone
Don't take the attitude of waiting for people to be nice to you - be nice to them. Don't sit in front of a cold stove waiting for the heat. Put in the fuel. Act first.
Everything that's really worthwhile in life comes to us free - our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our intelligence, our love of family and friends and country. All of these priceless possessions are free.
Now, if you want to get rich, you have only to produce a product or service that will give people greater use value than the price you charge for it. How rich you get will be determined by the number of people to whom you can sell the product or service.
Never compete, create.
You can predict a person's future and divine his bank balance if you know two things: the books he reads, the people he associates with.
Your rewards will be determined by the extent of your contribution, that is your service to others.
You are, at this moment, standing, right in the middle of your own 'acres of diamonds.'
Dream what you dare to dream. Go where you want to go. Be what you want to be.
No man can get rich himself unless he enriches others. (Meaning)
What happens inside always appears outside.
Shooting for the top will bring out the best that's in you.
People are where they are because that is exactly where they really want to be - whether they will admit that or not.
We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we've established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile.
Strange and marvelous things will happen with constant regularity as you alter your life and begin living in harmony with the laws of the universe.
We become what we think about most of the time, and that's the strangest secret.
Do each day all that can be done that day. You don't need to overwork or to rush blindly into your work trying to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time. Don't try to do tomorrow's or next week's work today. It's not the number of things you do, but the quality, the efficiency of each separate action that count. To achieve this "habit of success," you need only to focus on the most important tasks and succeed in each small task of each day.
All you have to do is hold your goal before you and everything else will take care of itself.
Picture yourself in your minds eye as having already achieved this goal. See yourself doing the things you'll be doing when you've reached your goal.
Excellence always sells.
If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject.
Most very successful people can remember that their success was discovered and built out of adversity of some kind. It's not the problems that beset us-problems are surprisingly pretty much the same for millions of others-it's how we react to problems that determines not only our degree of growth and maturity but our future success-and, perhaps, much of our health.
Security isn't what the wise person looks for - it's opportunity.
Throughout all history, the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things. It is only on this one point that they are in complete and unanimous agreement. We become what we think about
Success is not the result of making money; earning money is the result of success — and success is in direct proportion to our service.
Open your ears before you open your mouth, it may surprise your eyes!
It's difficult for people to come to the understanding that only a small minority of people ever really get the word about life, about living abundantly and successfully. Success in the important departments of life seldom comes naturally, no more naturally than success at anything - a musical instrument, sports, fly-fishing , tennis, golf, business, marriage, parenthood. But for some reason most people wait passively for success to come to them ..., living as other people are living in the unspoken, tacit assumption that other people know how to live successfully.
For a person to build a rich and rewarding life for himself, there are certain qualities and bits of knowledge that he needs to acquire. But there are also things — harmful attitudes, superstitions, emotions — that he needs to chip away. A person needs to chip away everything that doesn't look like the person he or she most wants to become.
If you don't have a good model for success, just look at what everybody else is doing and do the opposite.
Your rewards, all the years of your life, will be in precise proportion to your service. You are here to serve others, just as they serve you.
The strangest secret in the world is that you become what you think about.
By being persistent, you're demonstrating faith. Persistence is simply another word for faith. If you didn't have faith, you'd never persist.
People don't have great attitudes because of great success, they have great success largely because of great attitudes.
Whenever we're afraid, it's because we don't know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.
We can help others in the world more by making the most of yourself than in any other way. We must be the epitome-the embodiment-of success. We must radiate success before it will come to us. We must first become mentally, from an attitude standpoint, the people we wish to become. We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.
If the average person realized the power he wields over his life and destiny, he would live in a perpetual state of wonder and thanksgiving.
If you spend an extra hour each day of study in your chosen field you will be a national expert in that field in five years or less.
Don't catch the bad and infectious attitudes of others.
We tend to minimize the things we can do, the goals we can accomplish, and for some equally strange reason we think other people can accomplish things that we cannot. I want you to understand that that is not true. You have deep reservoirs of talent and ability within you that you can bring to the surface and achieve all that you desire
Don't wait for change. You change.
Be positive, cheerful, grateful and expectant.
We are all creatures of habit. We can do most things without even thinking about them; our bodies take charge and do them for us.
Each of us creates his or her own life largely by our attitude.
We've got to be of service first before we can expect money.
Everything begins with an idea. (Quote Meaning)
You are responsible for how your life turns out, and your attitude shapes that life for better or worse.
Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitude and expectations. If we feel that our environment could stand some improvement, we can bring about that change for the better by improving our attitude. The world plays no favorites. It's impersonal. It doesn't care who succeeds and who fails. Nor does it care if we change. Our attitude toward life doesn't affect the world and the people in it nearly as much as it affects us.
Most people think they want more money than they really do, and they settle for a lot less than they could get
Failures - Believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances by things that happen to them by exterior forces.
That's the secret: be interesting. If you can't be interesting, shut up. There's nothing wrong with silence.
Ask yourself every morning, ‘how can I increase my service today?’
Time can't be managed. I merely manage activities. Each night, I write down on a sheet of paper a list of the things I have to accomplish the next day. And when I wake up. I do them.
But the 3% who have taken the time and exercised the discipline to decide on a destination and to chart a course sail straight and far across the deep oceans of life, reaching one port after another and accomplishing more in just a few years than the rest accomplish in a lifetime.
When the days are too short, chances are you are living at your best.
Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away.
Find what you can do best that renders service to others and do it with all your might.
Getting rich, or becoming outstanding at anything is all a matter of attitude. You must make up your mind once and for all - you commit yourself - and then just stay with it until you finally have what you set out to get.
Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future.
The picture you have of yourself, your self-esteem, will have a profound effect on the way you see the world and the way your world sees you.
Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. (Meaning)
Your world and everything in it is a reflection of your own mental attitude toward yourself.
Attitude is the reflection of a person, and our world mirrors our attitude.
You become what you continually think about. (Quote Meaning)
To achieve happiness, we should make certain that we are never without an important goal.
The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who early in life clearly discerns his object, and towards that object habitually directs his powers.
With every adversity, there is an equal or greater gift. Keep looking for the gift.
It's never too late, for with a purpose, a worthy goal and a motivation to reach those upper layers on the pyramid, a person can travel further in a few years than he might otherwise travel in a lifetime.
Security isn't what the wise person looks for; it's opportunity. And once we begin looking for that, we find it on every side. You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.
Goals reflect your choice of destination.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to live on this beautiful and astonishing planet Earth. In the morning, I wake up with a sense of gratitude.
If honesty did not exist, it would have to be invented, as it is the surest way of getting rich.
If your attitude toward the world is good, you will obtain good results. If your attitude is excellent, excellent will your results.
Instead of competing, all we have to do is create.
The amount of money we receive will always be in direct ratio to the demand for what we do; our ability to do it; and the difficulty in replacing us.
We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light.[so we can see the bright side of everything]
Every great accomplishment of mankind has been preceded by an extended period, often over many years, of concentrated effort.
Some people act as if it were demeaning to their manhood to wish to be well-read but you can no more be a healthy person mentally without reading substantial books than you can be a vigorous person physically without eating solid food. Books should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. Dr. Johnson said: "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son shall read first, another boy has read both."
The big thing is that you know what you want. (Meaning)
If the grass is greener on the other side it`s probably getting better care. Success is a matter of sticking to a set of common sense principles anyone can master.
The key that unlocks energy is desire. It's also the key to a long and interesting life. If we expect to create any drive, any real force within ourselves, we have to get excited.
Visualization is the human being's vehicle to the future - good, bad, or indifferent. It's strictly in our control.
You can control your attitude. Set it each morning.
Get into a line that you will find to be a deep personal interest, something you really enjoy spending twelve to fifteen hours a day working at, and the rest of the time thinking about.
Our rewards in life will always be in exact proportion to the amount of consideration we show toward others.
The person with just one good idea is a thousand times better off than the person with no good ideas.
Just one great idea can completely revolutionize your life. (Meaning)
Your rewards in life are in direct proportion to your service
There are times for all of us when all the laughter seems to be gone, but we should not permit these periods to last too long. When we've lost our sense of humor, there isn't very much left. We become ridiculous. We must then go to war against the whole world, and that's a war we cannot win.
These people get to the top because they have to, because inside them burns a dream too big, too ever present, too demanding to be denied.
You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.
To become successful and outstanding at something, we don't have to come up with something new; we need only find ways of doing it better.
If you'll begin to develop and maintain an attitude that says yes to life and the world, you'll be astonished at the changes you'll see.
A success is anyone who is doing deliberately a pre-determined job, because that's what he decided to do deliberately. But only one out of twenty does that.
A person who does not read is no better than one cannot read.
The only person who succeeds is the person who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal. That's the person who says, 'I'm going to become this' and then begins to work toward that goal
Do what experts since the dawn of recorded history have told you you must do: pay the price by becoming the person you want to become. It's not nearly as difficult as living unsuccessfully.
Most people begin their day in neutral. They will simply react to whatever confronts them.
Everything you and I will ever have will come to us as the result of the way we use our minds, the one thing we possess that makes us different from all other creatures.
Self-pity is an acid which eats holes in happiness.
The greatest thing on earth is a good idea!
The mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts.
The key that unlocks energy is desire.
Money is the harvest of our production and service. We in turn use it to obtain the production and service of others.
Perseverance is another word for faith!
― Earl Nightingale Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
