Browse 8 quotations connecting Orison Swett Marden with Identity, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Sources represented here include The Victorious Attitude, How to Succeed, Architects of Fate.
“It is not a question of what some one else can do or become, which every youth should ask himself, but what can I do?”
The question redirects comparison away from other people and toward the concrete development of one’s own abilities.
Architects of Fate; Project Gutenberg #21622. This record uses the opening portion of Marden’s longer self-development question.
“We cannot deceive ourselves any of the time, and the only way to enjoy our own respect is to deserve it.”
Self-respect is linked to conduct rather than self-flattery: a stable good opinion of oneself is earned by behaving in ways one can honestly stand behind.
How to Succeed, “Hold Up Your Head”; Marden follows a Lincoln anecdote by arguing that self-respect depends on deserving one’s own approval.
“Shame and its consequent degradation follow the loss of our own good opinion rather than the esteem of others.”
The sentence places moral injury in losing one’s own considered respect, not merely in losing social approval, making conscience a more important measure than reputation.
How to Succeed; the sentence appears in Marden’s discussion of temptation, aspiration, and the damage caused when self-respect is surrendered.
“Believe in yourself; you may succeed when others do not believe in you, but never when you do not believe in yourself.”
External encouragement can help, but Marden makes self-belief the non-substitutable part of action: progress is difficult when a person has already decided internally that success is impossible.
How to Succeed, chapter “Hold Up Your Head,” in the Project Gutenberg text; the book’s period language and success philosophy are preserved as historical self-development writing.
“Let no one shake your faith in yourself.”
The brief command protects an internal source of confidence from being surrendered automatically to criticism or discouragement from outside.
The Victorious Attitude; the sentence is followed by explicitly religious language about faith, so the source page keeps that spiritual context visible.
“Remember it is not other people's faith in you but your faith in yourself that counts most.”
Other people’s confidence is useful but not decisive; Marden emphasizes the belief that must remain available when approval, reassurance, or encouragement from others is absent.
The Victorious Attitude, chapter on faith; Marden explicitly distinguishes other people’s good opinion from the faith in oneself he calls imperative.
“Show the world that you respect yourself, that you believe in yourself, and that, no matter how hard the way, you are marching on to victory.”
Marden treats visible self-respect as a refusal to let hardship define identity, encouraging a posture of agency even when material circumstances are difficult.
The Victorious Attitude, opening chapter; the rhetoric is deliberately motivational and reflects early twentieth-century success literature rather than an empirical psychological claim.
“A man begins to deteriorate, to go toward failure, not when he loses all of his material possessions, not when he fails in his undertakings, but when he loses faith in himself, in his ability to make his dreams come true.”
Material loss and failed attempts are separated from the deeper danger of abandoning personal agency; the sentence treats continued self-belief as a resource for beginning again.
The Victorious Attitude; this sentence appears in Marden’s sustained argument that loss of self-faith is more damaging than the loss of possessions or an individual undertaking.
