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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMBITION AND

SUCCESS ***
 AMBITION AND
SUCCESS
BY

ORISON SWETT MARDEN

Author of “Character,” “Cheerfulness,” etc.

NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
 Copyright, 1919, by
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I What is Ambition? 1
II The Satisfied Man 7
III The Influence of Environment 17
IV Unworthy Ambitions 27
V Ambition Knows No Age Limit 37
VI Make Your Life Count 44
VII Visualize Yourself in a Better Position 52
VIII Thwarted Ambition 60
IX Why Don’t You Begin? 68
AMBITION
 CHAPTER I
WHAT IS AMBITION?
“Ambition is the spur that makes man struggle with destiny: it is
heaven’s own incentive to make purpose great, and
achievement greater.”

In a factory where mariners’ compasses are made, the needles,

before they are magnetized, will lie in any position, wherever they
are placed, but from the moment they have been touched by the
mighty magnet and have been electrified, they are never again the
same. They have taken on a mysterious power and are new
creatures. Before they are magnetized, they do not answer the call
of the North Star, the magnetic pole does not have any effect upon
them, but the moment they have been magnetized they swing to the
magnetic north, and are ever after loyal and true to their affinity.
Multitudes of people, like an unmagnetized needle, lie motionless,
unresponsive to any stimulus until they are touched by that
mysterious force we call ambition.
Whence comes this overmastering impulse which pushes human
beings on, each to his individual goal? Where is the source of
ambition, and how and when does it gain entrance into our lives?
How few of us ever stop to think what ambition really means, its
cause, or significance! Yet, if we could explain just what ambition is,
we could explain the mystery of the universe. The instinctive impulse
to keep pushing on and up is the most curious and the most
interesting thing in human life. It exists in every normal human
being, and is just as pronounced and as real as the instinct of self-
preservation.
I believe this incessant inward prompting, call it ambition or what we
will, this something which pushes men to their goal, is the
expression in man of the universal force of evolution which is flowing
Godward, that it is a part of the great cosmic plan of creation. We do
not create this urge, we do not manufacture it. Every normal person
feels this imperious must which is back of the flesh, but not of it, this
internal urge which is ever pushing us on, even at the cost of our
discomfort and sacrifice.
It is a part of every atom, for all atoms are alive, and this upward
impulse is in every one of them. It is in the instinct of the bee, the
ant, and in all forms of insect and animal life.
The same kind of urge that is in the seed buried out of sight and
which is ever pushing it up and out through the soil, prodding it to
develop itself to the utmost and to give its beauty and fragrance to
the world, is in each one of us. It is ever pushing us, urging us on to
fuller and completer expression, to a larger, more beautiful life.
But for this desire to get on and get up, this God-urge, everything,
even the universe itself, would collapse. Inertia would bring
everything to a standstill.
If we obey this call we expand, blossom into beauty and develop
into fruitage, but if we neglect or dissipate it, if we only half obey it,
we remain mere scrub plants, without flower or fruitage.
That mysterious urge within us never allows us to rest but is always
prodding us for our good, because there is no limit to human growth
there is no satisfying human ambition—man’s higher aspiration.
When we reach the height which looks so attractive from below, we
find our new position as unsatisfying as the old, and a perpetual call
to go higher still rings in our ears. A divine impulse constantly urges
us to reach our highest ideal.
“Faith and the ideal still remain the most powerful levers of progress
and of happiness,” says Jean Finot.
“Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and
singly toward an object,” asked Thoreau, “and in no measure
obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever
a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there
was no advantage in them,—that it was a vain endeavor?”
Aspiration finally becomes inspiration and ennobles the whole life.
When the general habit of always aspiring, moving upwards and
climbing to something higher and better is formed, all the
undesirable qualities and the vicious habits will fade away; they will
die from lack of nourishment. Only those things grow in our nature
which are fed. The quickest way to kill them is to cut off their
nourishment.
The craving for something higher and better is the best possible
antidote or remedy for the lower tendencies which one wishes to get
rid of.
Every faintest aspiration that springs up in our heart is a heavenly
seed within us which will grow and develop into rich beauty if only it
be fed, encouraged. The better things do not grow either in material
or mental soil without care and nourishment. Only weeds, briers,
and noxious plants thrive easily.
Most young people seem to think that ambition is a quality that is
born in one and which cannot be materially changed, but the
greatest ambition may be very materially injured in many different
ways. The habit of procrastination, of postponing, the habit of
picking out the easier tasks and putting off the difficult ones, for
example, will very seriously impair the ambition. Whatever affects
the ideals affects the ambition.
Ambition often begins very early to knock for recognition. If we do
not heed its voice, if it gets no encouragement after appealing to us
for years, it gradually ceases to trouble us, because, like any other
unused quality or function, it deteriorates or disappears when
unused.
God is whispering into the ear of all existence, of every created thing
“Look up.” Every sentient thing in the universe seems to be trying to
get to a higher level. Everything is in the process of evolution, and
the evolution is always upward. The butterfly does not become a
grub. It is not the evolutionary law. The grub develops into a
butterfly. It is never the other way.
Be careful how you discourage or refuse to heed that inner voice
which commands you to go forward, for if you do it will become less
and less insistent until finally it will cease to prod you, and when
ambition is dead deterioration has set in.
That inner call to go forward, to push on to a higher good, is God’s
voice; heed it. It is your best friend and will lead you into light and
joy.
 CHAPTER II
THE SATISFIED MAN

F. W. Robertson has said, “Whoever is satisfied with what he does has

reached his culminating point—he will progress no more. Man’s
destiny is to be not dissatisfied, but forever unsatisfied.”
One of the saddest things in life is to see men and women who
started out with high hopes and proud ambitions settle down in
mediocre positions, half satisfied just merely to get a living, to plod
along indifferently.
Oh, what tragedy there is in being content with mediocrity, in getting
into a state where one is indifferent to the larger, better things of
life!
When you are satisfied with the life you are living, with the work you
are doing, with the thought you are thinking, with the dreams you
are dreaming, satisfied with the character you are building, with your
ideals, you may be sure that you are already beginning to
deteriorate.
There is little hope for the man who feels satisfied with himself, who
does not know, “the noble discontent that stirs the acorn to become
an oak.” Man’s ambition to improve something somewhere every day
to get a little further on and a little higher up than he was the day
before, an insatiable passion for bettering things all along the line, is
the secret of human progress.
Do you realize, my young friend, that if the motive were big enough,
if you had a very unusual incentive, you could materially improve
upon what you now are satisfied to consider your best endeavor? As
an employee you may think you are doing your level best, and are
conscientious, loyal, true and industrious; and yet, if a great prize
should be offered you to bring your work up to a certain higher
standard for the next sixty days, would you rest until you had
succeeded in very greatly improving what you now think is your best
work?
Don’t you think, you who pride yourself that it would be impossible
to better what you are now doing, that if your name were over the
door as proprietor instead of the name of the company you work for
you could jack yourself up about fifty per cent; that you would find
some way of doing it? Don’t you think you would be a little more
ambitious, make a little better use of your time, that you would try
to call out a little more ingenuity and effectiveness, a little more
resourcefulness? Do you think you would jog along in the same half-
hearted manner, thinking more of your salary than of your
opportunity to absorb the secrets of your employer’s success? Do
you think you would stand by without protest and see the
merchandise injured, or wasted, when you could stop it; or that you
would be so careless or make so many blunders yourself? Don’t you
think the prize to be gained would make you take a little more
interest in things than you do now; make you a little more alert,
more eager for the success of the business?
It is a deplorable sight to see so many young men and young
women apparently so satisfied with themselves, with what they are
doing, that they have no great yearnings, no insatiable longing for
something higher and better.
Multitudes of capable employees are satisfied to plod along in
mediocrity instead of rising to the heights, where their ability would
naturally carry them. I have a friend who has a much superior brain
to the man he is working for, and yet for a great many years he has
been on an ordinary salary. He has never married. He takes life in an
easy-going way and whenever I have tried to encourage him to go
into business for himself, to show him how much superior he is to
the man he is working for, he always says, “Why should I exert
myself more or take on greater business, responsibilities? I have
nobody but myself to consider. I like to have a good time, and don’t
want to have the worry, the care and anxiety of running a business
of my own, although I know perfectly well I could do it if I wanted
to.”
Of course, the higher up in the world a man gets the greater his
responsibility, but think of the satisfaction which comes from the
consciousness that he has made the most of his talents, that he has
not buried any of them in a napkin, the satisfaction which comes
from the feeling that he has made good, that he has delivered his
message to the world and delivered it like a man, that he has
fulfilled his mission, that he has made the most possible of the
material and the opportunities given him. The feeling that he has no
regrets, that he has done his level best more than compensates for
any additional effort and greater responsibility.
We tend to become like our aspirations. If we constantly aspire and
strive for something better and higher and nobler, we cannot help
broadening and improving. The ambition that is dominant in the
mind tends to work itself out in the life. If this ambition is sordid and
low and animal, we shall develop these qualities, for our lives follow
our ideals.
Civilization has made its greatest advancement under the stress of
necessity, under the leadership of a great ambition to satisfy the
heart’s yearnings for better things. We do our best work while we
are trying desperately to match our dreams with their reality.
The struggle of man to rise a little higher, to get into a little more
comfortable position, to secure a little better education, a little better
home, to gain a little more culture and refinement, to possess that
power which comes from being in a position of broader and wider
influence through the acquirement of property, is what has
developed the character and the stamina of our highest types of
manhood to-day. This upward life-trend gives others confidence in
us.
When we have attained a little success, when we have gained a little
public applause, how many of us think we can relax our efforts, and
before we realize it our ambition has disappeared, our energy
evaporated. A sort of lethargy comes over us and lulls us into
inaction.
First successes, and especially early successes, to many act like an
opiate. They are overcome with inertia which only an unsatisfied and
determined ambition can overcome. It takes more grit and a
stronger will to force ourselves to do our level best after we have
demonstrated without doubt that we have the ability to do what we
undertake, than it does to achieve the actual first success itself.
One of the greatest enemies to ambition is personal inertia, and it is
one of the hardest things to overcome. The temptation to slide along
the line of the least resistance, to get into a comfortable position and
take one’s ease, is so strong that many allow it to master them. The
ambition is not persistent enough or strenuous enough to shame
them out of their inertia, or prod them on to greater things.
Mediocrity is often a premium upon laziness. The poet tells us,
“He who would climb the heights sublime,
Or breathe the purer air of life,
Must not expect to rest in ease,
But brace himself for toil or strife.”
One of the most discouraging problems in the world is that of trying
to help the ambitionless, the half-satisfied, those who have not
discontent enough in their natures to push them on, initiative
enough to begin things, and persistency enough to keep going.
If a young man is apparently satisfied to drift along in a humdrum
way, half content with his accomplishments, undisturbed by the fact
that he has used but a very small part of himself, a very small
percentage of his real ability, that his energies are running to waste
in all sorts of ways, you cannot do much with him. If he lacks
ambition, life, energy and vigor—is willing to slide along the line of
the least resistance and exerts himself as little as possible, there is
nothing upon which to build.
It is the young man who is not satisfied with what he does, and who
is determined to better his best every day, who struggles to express
the ideal, to make the possible in him a reality, that wins.
Activity is the law of growth; effort the only means of improvement.
Whenever men have obeyed their lower nature and ceased to
struggle to better their condition, they have deteriorated physically,
mentally and morally; while, just in proportion as they have striven
honestly and insistently to improve their situation, they have
developed a larger and nobler human type.
When a man who is said to be the highest salaried official in the
United States was asked to give the secret of his success, he replied,
“I haven’t succeeded. No real man ever succeeds. There is always a
larger goal ahead.”
It is the small man who succeeds in his own estimation. Really great
men never reach their goal, because they are constantly pushing
their horizon out further and further, getting a broader vision, a
larger outlook, and their ambition grows with their achievement.
If you are getting a fair salary in a mediocre position there is danger
of hypnotizing yourself into the belief that there is no need to exert
yourself very much to get up higher. There is danger of limiting your
ambition so that you will be half content to remain a perpetual clerk
when you have the ability to do much better.
This satisfaction with the lesser when the greater is possible often
results from relatives or friends telling you that you are doing well,
and that you would better let well enough alone. These advisers say:
“Don’t take chances with a certainty. It is true you are not getting a
very big salary, but it is a sure thing, and if you give it up with the
hope of something better you may do worse.” Don’t let any one or
any conditions make you think you have not the ability to match
your longings. Wrapped up in every human being there are energies
which, if unfolded, concentrated, and given proper attention will
develop his highest ideal.
Our longings are creative principles, prophecies, indicative of
potencies equal to the task of actual achievement. These latent
potencies are not given to mock us. There are no sealed orders
wrapped within the brain without the accompanying ability to
execute them.
When you once get a glimpse of yourself as you were intended by
your Maker to be, with all of your latent possibilities developed into
realities; when you once see yourself as the superb man it is
possible for you to be, nothing and no one but yourself can prevent
you from attaining your ambition.
It is only the man who has stopped growing that feels satisfied with
his achievements. The growing man feels a great lack of wholeness,
of completeness. Everything in him seems to be unfinished because
it is growing. The expanding man is always dissatisfied with his
accomplishment, is always reaching out for something larger, fuller,
completer.
 CHAPTER III
THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT

Environment has a great deal to do with man’s ambition and

achievement. It may make all the difference to you, my friend,
between success and mediocrity, whether you are in a favorable
environment and keep close to people who inspire and encourage
you, who communicate to you the enthusiasm of their example, or
whether you are surrounded by discordant conditions, and associate
with people who have an opposite effect upon you.
We cannot associate with a really ambitious person without catching
his spirit to a greater or less extent. We unconsciously reflect the
people with whom we mingle much. Their mark is left upon us. We
may not be able to see it ourselves, but other people can detect it.
Our Indian schools sometimes publish, side by side, photographs of
the Indian youths as they come from the reservation and as they
look when they are graduated—well dressed, intelligent, with the fire
of ambition in their eyes. We predict great things for them; but the
majority of those who go back to their tribes after struggling awhile
to keep up their new standard gradually drop back to their old
manner of living. There are, of course, many notable exceptions, but
these are unusually strong characters, able to resist the downward-
dragging tendencies about them.
If you interview the great army of failures, you will find that
multitudes in it have failed because they never got into a
stimulating, encouraging environment, because their ambition was
never aroused, or because they were not strong enough to rally
under depressing, discouraging, or vicious surroundings.
How often we see men and women with splendid brain power, with
robust physiqúe, apparently superbly equipped for great careers,
and yet they are living very ordinary lives, plodding along perhaps in
mediocrity! This may be because they have never been aroused, and
are totally ignorant of their powers. They may never have looked
into the mirror of others who were succeeding along their lines and
caught a glimpse of their own possibilities.
Whatever you do in life, make any sacrifice necessary to keep in an
ambition-arousing atmosphere, an environment that will stimulate
you to self-development. Keep close to people who understand you,
who believe in you, who will help you to discover yourself and
encourage you to make the most of your life. Choose companions
and friends who are in sympathy with your ambition and who will
give you their moral support and make you do what you are capable
of doing. A few such friends may make all the difference to you
between a grand success and a mediocre existence. We are all
diamonds in the rough. Our environment may grind one, two or
twenty facets. Some people never come in contact with the wheel
which grinds a facet and lets in the light to reveal the hidden
wonders. Many are buried as rough diamonds even though there
may have been locked up in them great brilliancy and enormous
value. Comparatively few human diamonds are ever so completely
ground that all the hidden treasures are revealed.
Yet how trifling are the things which sometimes reveal the man! It
may be the sight of a motto, the hearing of a sermon, a speech, the
reading of some inspiring life history or some stirring ambition-
arousing book, the encouraging conversation of a friend, of some
one who believes in us and sees in us something which we never
knew was there.
I know men who had apparently lost their ambition, who had been
literally down and out, but who, by the reading of an inspiring book,
or listening to a stimulating sermon, were thoroughly aroused to
their possibilities even in a most discouraging environment and so
completely transformed in a few months that they did not seem like
the same individuals.
The speeches of Wendell Phillips, Webster, and Henry Clay, started a
fire in many an ambitious youth which never went out, but which
became a beacon light in American history.
We all know that the old-fashioned debating societies and clubs
woke up the ambition of many a youth in the early days of our
country, who might never have been heard from outside of his own
little community but for the arousing influence of these debates.
The ambition of the boy who has lived on a farm in the back country
is often aroused for the first time when he goes to the city. To him
the metropolis is a colossal world’s fair, where everybody’s
achievement is on exhibition. The progressive spirit which pervades
the city is like an electric shock to him and arouses all of his latent
energies, calls out his reserves. Everything he sees seems to be a
summons to him to go forward, to push on.
He is constantly reminded by his city environment of what others
have done. He sees the tremendous engineering feats, great
factories and offices, vast businesses, all huge advertisers of man’s
achievement, and is stirred by an ambition to do something great
himself.
Ambition is contagious. When a man meets others at the restaurant
or club, or in other social ways, and hears accounts of their great
successes, greater achievement, he immediately says to himself,
“Why can’t I do it?” “Why don’t I do it?” and if he is of any account
he probably says, “I will do it!” Then he goes back to his business
with a new determination, perhaps with new ideas and new
conceptions of the possibilities of his own success.
I have known young business men in the country who have not
been specially successful who got tremendous impetus to their
ambition by visiting larger city concerns in the same line of business.
The greater successes touched their pride and they went back home
and began to brace up and build up.
The same thing is true in professional life. The young country doctor
visits a city hospital, attends clinics, sees operations by noted
surgeons, and he goes home with his ambition fired and makes a
vigorous resolution to try harder to be somebody in his own
profession.
Men who are in business in small towns where they have no
competition, and where they very seldom come in contact with those
who are successful in their line of trade, are in constant danger of
getting into a rut. Their ambition unconsciously becomes dulled, the
energy oozes out of their efforts, and they take things easier, jog
along in the same old manner year after year, and before they
realize it dry rot gets into their business.
It is much easier to keep up one’s interest and enthusiasm to do
things worth while when we are right in touch with the ambitious,
with those who are forging ahead with all their might, and who are
perhaps working under great difficulties.
One of the unfortunate things about small towns and country places
is the lack of stimulus to ambition. Many people living in remote
country districts do not come in contact with standards by which
they can measure and compare their own powers. They live a quiet
uneventful life, and there is little in their environment to arouse the
faculties which are not active in their vocation.
If you are ambitious to get on you will learn some splendid lessons
from studying the qualities of those who have succeeded along the
line of your ambition. You will find that it is a characteristic of the
winner, that he is always thinking upon his life theme, is always
headed towards the goal of his ambition, always planning along the
line of his dreams. He talks the things, acts in the same direction, his
whole life is absorbed in his theme. He radiates law, medicine,
engineering, or manufacturing. By keeping his mind in a positive,
creative condition he is constantly encouraging his mental magnet to
attract the thing he is studying. If he is studying law he thinks law,
pictures himself pleading at court, or giving advice in his office. He
becomes a law magnet to attract law.