Earl Nightingale (1921–89) was an American radio personality and motivational speaker and author. This “Dean of Personal Development” authored The Strangest Secret (1956,) widely admired as a great motivational work.
Nightingale was the writer and commentator of the popular syndicated radio show Our Changing World. He penned and recorded over 7,000 radio programs and 250 audio programs on motivation, personality development, and leading a meaningful life.
In 1950, Nightingale read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937) and was inspired by the adage “we become what we think about.” This mindset was the foundation of his tape-record and book The Strangest Secret, which sold millions of copies. Nightingale defined success as “the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. If a man is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where he’s going, that man is a success. If he’s not doing that, he’s a failure. And there you have the trouble today; it’s conformity—people acting like everyone without knowing why, without knowing where they’re going.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Earl Nightingale
Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Planning
All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Goals
We tend to live up to our expectations.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Expectation
When you judge others,
you do not define them, you define yourself.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Judgment
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.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Ideas
To achieve happiness, we should make certain that we are never without an important goal.
—Earl Nightingale
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Success & Failure, Success
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.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Purpose
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.
—Earl Nightingale
Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Opportunity
Whenever we’re afraid, it’s because we don’t know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Fear
We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Strength
Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Luck, Success, Success & Failure
You become what you think about.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Thoughts, Thought, Thinking
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
Topics: Service
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.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Thinking
The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Work
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
Topics: Action, Perseverance
To give oneself is the only way of becoming oneself.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Service
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.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Attitude
All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Planning
Everything that’s really worthwhile in life comes to us.
—Earl Nightingale
Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Reality
Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Attitude
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. There are also things, harmful attitudes, superstitions, and 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.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Wealth, Riches
The big thing is that you know what you want.
—Earl Nightingale
Topics: Goals
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