Earl Nightingale was a highly influential personality who came to fame in the 20th century. He retired early by the age of 35, pioneered one of the first audio-recordings in the success and self-development industry, and eventually published one the most well thought-out and masterfully narrated success guides ever created. Having discovered the secret to success, and then generously sharing that secret with the rest of the world, his contribution to modern society is for all intents and purposes, unmatched. As such, we aim to ensure his legacy and sage advice continues to change peoples lives. Which is why, we’ve decided to publish this collection of the very best Earl Nightingale quotes from a variety of his best works.
“Earl Nightingale Has Inspired More People Toward Success And Fortune Than Any Other Motivational Speaker On The Planet.”
– zig ziglar –
So, if you’re ready to learn from the wise words of one of the world’s most prominent scholars on the subject of success, and learn the very secret to success while you’re at it, then let’s dive into these quotes:
BEST EARL NIGHTINGALE QUOTES
1. “Every one of us is the sum total of his own thoughts.” – Earl Nightingale
2. “People are where they are because that is exactly where they really want to be whether they will admit that or not.” – Earl Nightingale
3. “Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind.” – Earl Nightingale
4. “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become reality.” – Earl Nightingale
5. “When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself” – Earl Nightingale
6. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” – Earl Nightingale
7. “Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.” – Earl Nightingale
8. “It is not what happens to you in life that makes the difference. It is how you react to each circ*mstance you encounter that determines the result.” – Earl Nightingale
9. “Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; wherever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable.” – Earl Nightingale
10. “The strangest secret in the world is that you become what you think about.” – Earl Nightingale
Earl Nightingale Quotes on Success
This next batch of quotes is some of Earl’s wisest words on the topic of finding and achieving success. No doubt, all of his advice can be attributed to success, but this next handful of quotes are the most poignant.
With that said, if you’re here in search of success insights then these Earl Nightingale quotes on success will do the trick. Enjoy.
11. “People with goals succeed because they know where they are going.” – Earl Nightingale
12. “Whatever the majority of people are doing, under any given circ*mstance, if you’ll do the exact opposite, you will probably never make another mistake as long as you live.” – Earl Nightingale
13. “We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.” – Earl Nightingale
14. “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” – Earl Nightingale
15. “Success is not the result of making money; making money is the result of success… and success is in direct proportion to our service.” – Earl Nightingale
16. “A success is anyone who is doing deliberately a worthy predetermined job, because that’s what he decided to do deliberately.” – Earl Nightingale
17. “There is no success without suffering. I think that the word ‘suffering’ was meant to mean tremendous effort and direction.” – Earl Nightingale
18. “Successful people form the habit of doing what failures don’t like to do. They like the results they get by doing what they don’t necessarily enjoy.” – Earl Nightingale
19. “Men credited with all kinds of ability, talent, brains and know how, including the ability to see into the future, frequently have nothing more than the courage to keep everlastingly at what they set out to do. They have that one great quality that is worth more than all the rest put together. They simply will not give up! When a man makes up his mind to do something then it’s only a matter of time. Staying with time takes bulldog persistence. This seems to be the entrance examination to success – lasting success — of any kind!” – Earl Nightingale
20. “We tend to live up to our expectations.” – Earl Nightingale
21. “Your success will always be measured by the quality and quantity of service you render.” – Earl Nightingale
22. “Successful people are not without problems. They’re simply people who’ve learned to solve their problems.” – Earl Nightingale
23. “Most people tiptoe through life, hoping to make it safely to death.” – Earl Nightingale
24. “A success is the school teacher who is teaching because that’s what she wants to do.” – Earl Nightingale
25. “The only person who succeeds is the person who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal.” – Earl Nightingale
26. “All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” – Earl Nightingale
27. “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.” – Earl Nightingale
28. “A person who does not read is no better than one cannot read.” – Earl Nightingale
29. “Any person who contributes to prosperity must prosper in turn.” – Earl Nightingale
30. “A great attitude is not the result of success; Success is the result of a great attitude.” – Earl Nightingale
31. “If the grass is greener on the other side it’s probably getting better care.” – Earl Nightingale
32. “Each of us creates his or her own life largely by our attitude.” – Earl Nightingale
33. “One extra hour of study per day and you’ll be a national expert in five years or less.” – Earl Nightingale
34. “If you don’t have a good model for success, just look at what everybody else is doing and do the opposite.” – Earl Nightingale
35. “Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.” – Earl Nightingale
36. “Plant your goal in yourmind. It’s the most important decision you’llever make in your entire life.” – Earl Nightingale
37. “The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.” – Earl Nightingale
38. “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.” – Earl Nightingale
39. “Just one great idea can completely revolutionize your work and, as a result, your life.”
40. “You must radiate success before it will come to you.” – Earl Nightingale
Inspiring Earl Nightingale Quotes
If you’ve never read or listened to any of Earl Nightingales books or audio books, we highly recommend the investment. Quotes are a great starting place to get you accustomed to his line of thinking, but you’ll get the most out of his teachings by studying his material thoroughly.
With that said, here are some of the most inspiring Earl Nightingale quotes we collected during our study. Enjoy.
41. “A person’s discontent can be said to be measured by the distance between what he has and what he wants.” – Earl Nightingale
42. “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.” – Earl Nightingale
43. “You are now and you do become, what you think about.” – Earl Nightingale
44. “Perseverance is another word for faith!” – Earl Nightingale
45. “Act the part of the successful person whom you’ve decided to become.” – Earl Nightingale
46. “We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light.” – Earl Nightingale
47. “A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere till you change it.” – Earl Nightingale
48. “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.” – Earl Nightingale
49. “Creativity is an expression of our enthusiasm.” – Earl Nightingale
50. “Everything begins with an idea.” – Earl Nightingale
51. “Work never killed anyone. It’s worry that does the damage. And the worry would disappear if we’d just settle down and do the work.” – Earl Nightingale
52. “Problems are challenges to creative minds. Without problems, there would be little reason to think at all.” – Earl Nightingale
53. “The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else.” – Earl Nightingale
54. “Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now.” – Earl Nightingale
55. “Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.” – Earl Nightingale
56. “You’ll find boredom where there is the absence of a good idea.” – Earl Nightingale
57. “There is a time when one must decide either to risk everything to fulfill one’s dreams or sit for the rest of one’s life in the backyard.” – Earl Nightingale
58. “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.” – Earl Nightingale
59. “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.” – Earl Nightingale
60. “What’s going on in the inside shows on the outside.” – Earl Nightingale
Earl Nightingale Quotes from The Greatest Discovery
Earl Nightingale’s first published book was ‘The Greatest Discovery’ which won him the Napoleon Hill Gold Medal for Literary Excellence.[1] As such, this next batch consists of some of the best Earl Nightingale quotes from his book ‘The Greatest Discovery’. We hope you enjoy this rare collection of inspiring quotes.
If you want to learn more about Earl Nightingale before you dive into this next batch of quotes, this is a terrific place to start here: Who His Earl Nightingale?
61. “The best is never the most popular.” – Earl Nightingale
62. “Using our intuition along with our intelligence as a guide, can be the best way to produce super ideas.” – Earl Nightingale
63. “Planting a problem or question deep in the subconscious by first turning it every which way during an in-depth conscious attempt to solve it, usually results in the answer eventually appearing completely unbidden in our consciousness.” – Earl Nightingale
64. “When can think better, more profitably, and serve more people through ideas than we can ever do physically.” – Earl Nightingale
65. “The ideas we hold should be in concert with our goals, if our goals are to be successfully achieved.” – Earl Nightingale
66. “An idea is the bringing together of known increments to provide a new result.” – Earl Nightingale
67. “Service, we are here to serve each other. And every one of us does who receives anything back in the way of return. Those who do not serve, do not receive anything.” – Earl Nightingale
68. “The greatest thing in the world is the opportunity to be of service to others.” – Earl Nightingale
69. “Attitude comes very close to being everything about success or failure.” – Earl Nightingale
70. “There’s a place for every person who will persevere.” – Earl Nightingale
71. “My habit of muttering to myself, “Stay with it!” had paid off, just as it always does.” – Earl Nightingale
72. “It’s staying with it that separates the winners from the losers.” – Earl Nightingale
73. “A person can have a great education, but if he also has a poor attitude, he will almost certainly fail.” – Earl Nightingale
74. “We are what we repeatedly do, but what we do is a matter of choice.” – Earl Nightingale
75. “We become successful to the extent of our true desires and determination, and we do so by building on our strong points; our forte.” – Earl Nightingale
The Strangest Secret Quotes by Earl Nightingale
Earl Nightingale’s claim to fame and lasting legacy was his creation of the audiobook ‘The Strangest Secret’. We’ve provided a few quotes from this masterpiece in earlier sections; however, this batch focuses on the very Strangest Secret quotes by Earl Nightingale.
76. “Books are filled with ideas, and ideas spur us into action.” – Earl Nightingale
77. “I can determine what I think about, therefore I can determine what I become and what I have.” – Earl Nightingale
78. “Our minds are the gyrocompasses of our lives, we can only go were they direct us, and we are in charge of our minds.” – Earl Nightingale
79. “You will do more good for the rest of the human race enthusiastically going full bore after the things you want, than in any other way, because the only way you can get the things you want is by providing service to others — and the more intense and enthusiastic you are about it, the better will be your service. It’s the way the free-market private enterprise American system works.” – Earl Nightingale
80. “The universal key to success simply put is this… as you think, so shall you become.” – Earl Nightingale
81. “You’ll do best at what you most want to do in the pursuit of your personal goals, in so doing, you’ll provide the maximum service to those you need to help you.” – Earl Nightingale
82. “Ideas are the most important things on earth, and each of us has his or her our own idea factory — it comes as standard equipment at birth.” – Earl Nightingale
83. “Don’t ever say, I’d like to get to the point where I can start taking things easy.” – Earl Nightingale
84. “Our rewards, all the years of our lives, will be in proportion to our service. We are here, we live, in order to serve one another.” – Earl Nightingale
85. “Without ideas, we’d still be sitting in the trees grooming one another.” – Earl Nightingale
86. “There are no guarantees. Don’t confuse opportunity with guarantee.” – Earl Nightingale
87. “It’s best you get rid of that terrible word “security” now, once and for all, there’s no such thing as security as long as you’re alive. Dead you’re secure. Unborn you’re secure. If you’re alive, you’re the very epitome of insecurity.” – Earl Nightingale
88. “People will make you rich, or keep you broke, depending on the way you serve them. You should make up your mind at the outset if you are planning to become a successful entrepreneur, that you are going to make people outside the organization and inside the organization your special concern.” – Earl Nightingale
89. “You can’t lose money on a customer if you treat him or her the way they should be treated.” – Earl Nightingale
90. “Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity.” – Earl Nightingale
91. “The successful person does things. The unsuccessful person has done things done to him or her.” – Earl Nightingale
92. “Life should be an exciting adventure. It should never be a bore. A man should live fully, be alive. He should be glad to get out of bed in the morning. He should be doing a job that he likes to do because he does it well.” – Earl Nightingale
93. “Your success will always be measured by the quality and quantity of service you render.” – Earl Nightingale
94. “There is no fragment of this freedom of ours, that can’t be turned into the success we seek.” – Earl Nightingale
95. “There are no jobs so humble, that they do not have lurking within them the opportunity for greatness and all the success we could possibly want, but it takes that expectant attitude to see it.” – Earl Nightingale
96. “More than any other factor perhaps, the unsuccessful person can usually be identified with a group.” – Earl Nightingale
97. “The person who succeeds in America is the person who sets his or her own wages, goals, and lifestyle.” – Earl Nightingale
98. “The American people can become whatever it is they want to become – the trouble is, they seldom make that decision.” – Earl Nightingale
99. “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice… it is conformity.”
100. “The unsuccessful person sowing little, reaps little.” – Earl Nightingale
101. “The law is, that our financial return will be in direct proportion to our service.” – Earl Nightingale
102. “If you believe you can enrich yourself by deluding others, you can end only by deluding yourself.” – Earl Nightingale
103. “Money is the harvest of our production.” – Earl Nightingale
104. “No man can get rich himself unless he enriches others.” – Earl Nightingale
105. “The greatest journey is the journey of the mind.” – Earl Nightingale
Bonus Earl Nightingale Quote
Bonus: Here’s our last and final Earl Nightingale quote. It’s been said in one of the earlier quotes in a different way. But, it’s being rehashed here because we believe it’s one of his best, and it’s the one you’ll stand to gain the most from. So, if you take any quote from this page to run with, this is the one to take, Enjoy.
“We Become What We Think About Most Of The Time, And That’s The Strangest Secret.”
– earl nightingale –
Final Thoughts
There you have it, the most comprehensive collection of Earl Nightingale quotes on the web. We hope the wisdom found in his words inspires you to learn more about this inspiring human.
But most importantly, we hope his quotes will eventually lead to your own serious study of his time-tested philosophy of success.
That said, if you enjoyed these quotes, please share them. Or, if you think there’s a Millennial or Gen Z’er out there who could benefit from the learning of Earl Nightingale’s timeless wisdom, please share these quotes with them as well. Because there’s no doubt, that his success philosophy is one of the best kept secrets of this generation.
Till you reach your aims,
STRIVE
PS – If you enjoyed these Earl Nightingale quotes, then there’s a good chance you’ll also stand to benefit from studying the wise words of these success-minded individuals as well:
Napoleon Hill | Zig Ziglar | Bob Proctor | Jim Rohn
