The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.
Interpretation
Success comes from focusing on one's own journey rather than feeling envious of others' achievements.
This quote by Herodotus suggests that the true key to success is not merely avoiding failures, but rather maintaining a mindset free from envy. It emphasizes the importance of being content with one's own progress and achievements, rather than comparing oneself to others, which can distract and detract from personal growth and fulfillment.
In practice
In a motivational speech to encourage students before their exams.
The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that is first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay and I never want to finish second again.
An achievement is a bondage. It obliges one to a higher achievement.
I began by acting like the person I wanted to be, and eventually I became that person.
Most work is not coming up with The Next Big Thing. Rather, it's improving the thing you already thought of six months - or six years - ago. It's the work of work.
In every failure lies the seeds of success.
The ideal business is one that earns very high returns on capital and that keeps using lots of capital at those high returns. That becomes a compounding machine.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.