Og Mandino (1923–1996) was an American author best known for his bestselling self-help book, “The Greatest Salesman in the World.” Born on December 12, 1923, in Framingham, Massachusetts, Mandino’s early life was marked by struggles, including periods of alcoholism and homelessness. His life took a positive turn when he discovered a self-help book in a library and embarked on a journey of self-improvement. Inspired by his own transformation, Mandino authored “The Greatest Salesman in the World,” published in 1968, which offered a unique approach to success through a fictionalized story with ten ancient scrolls containing life principles. Og Mandino’s works, including “The Greatest Secret in the World” and “The Choice,” continued to emphasize motivational and self-help themes, earning him widespread recognition. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide, making him a significant figure in the self-help genre. Mandino passed away on September 3, 1996.
Og Mandino Quotes
1. “Action will destroy your procrastination.”
— Og Mandino
2. “I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.”
— Og Mandino
3. “I will persist until I succeed!”
— Og Mandino
4. “Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.”
— Og Mandino
5. “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.”
— Og Mandino
6. “Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure.”
— Og Mandino
7. “Do all things with love.”
— Og Mandino
8. “Weak is he who permits his thoughts to control his actions; strong is he who forces his actions to control his thoughts.”
— Og Mandino
9. “Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all.”
— Og Mandino
10. “If I persist long enough I will win.”
— Og Mandino
11. “Success and rest don’t sleep together.”
— Og Mandino
12. “If I must be a slave to habit let me be a slave to good habits.”
— Og Mandino
13. “Use wisely your power of choice.”
— Og Mandino
14. “My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible. All are of no value unless they are followed by action.”
— Og Mandino
15. “I will persist until I succeed. I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.”
— Og Mandino
16. “Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.”
— Og Mandino
17. “Today I begin a new life. Today I shed my old skin which hath, too long, suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediocrity. Today I am born anew and my birthplace is a vineyard where there is fruit for all.”
— Og Mandino
18. “It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.”
— Og Mandino
19. “I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.”
— Og Mandino
20. “Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”
— Og Mandino
21. “Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”
— Og Mandino
22. “I will form good habits and become their slaves.”
— Og Mandino
23. “I will greet this day with love in my heart.”
— Og Mandino
24. “True happiness lies within you.”
— Og Mandino
25. “I will act now. I will act now. I will act now.”
— Og Mandino
26. “The greatest legacy we can leave our children is happy memories.”
— Og Mandino
27. “I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat; for they are the words of fools.”
— Og Mandino
28. “The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them.”
— Og Mandino
29. “Never settle for the crumbs of life.”
— Og Mandino
30. “Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday.”
— Og Mandino
31. “If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed!”
— Og Mandino
32. “Your only limitations are those you set up in your mind, or permit others to set up for you.”
— Og Mandino
33. “Do not listen to those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious.”
— Og Mandino
34. “Tomorrow is only found in the calendar of fools.”
— Og Mandino
35. “I am not a human being, I am a human becoming.”
— Og Mandino
36. “Today I will be the master of my emotions.”
— Og Mandino
37. “I will not allow yesterday’s success to lull me into today’s complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure.”
— Og Mandino
38. “Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”
— Og Mandino
39. “Act now, for now, is all you have.”
— Og Mandino
40. “Realize how good you really are.”
— Og Mandino
41. “I shall live this day as if it is my last. And if it is not, I shall fall to my knees and give thanks.”
— Og Mandino
42. “I will greet this day with love in my heart. For this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures. Muscles can split a shield and even destroy life itself but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of man.”
— Og Mandino
43. “Never feel shame for trying and failing, for he who never failed is he who never tried.”
— Og Mandino
44. “Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.”
— Og Mandino
45. “In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits.”
— Og Mandino
46. “Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now.”
— Og Mandino
47. “I will keep a smile on my face and in my heart even when it hurts today.”
— Og Mandino
48. “Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.”
— Og Mandino
49. “Practice the art of patience for nature never acts in haste.”
— Og Mandino
50. “I will waste not even a precious second today in anger or hate or jealousy or selfishness. I know that the seeds I sow I will harvest, because every action, good or bad, is always followed by an equal reaction. I will plant only good seeds this day.”
— Og Mandino
51. “God will never give you any problems that he thinks you can’t solve.”
— Og Mandino
52. “I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. With these words, I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success.”
— Og Mandino
53. “What is past is past. You can do nothing about yesterday and last month and the failures of last year, but you can do everything toward making tomorrow and the rest of your life what you always dreamed it could be.”
— Og Mandino
54. “Each day is a special gift from God, and while life may not always be fair, you must never allow the pains, hurdles, and handicaps of the moment to poison your attitude and plans for yourself and your future.”
— Og Mandino
55. “You can’t conquer reality by running away from it.”
— Og Mandino
56. “The secret of success is to triple your rate of failure.”
— Og Mandino
57. “Take great comfort in knowing that ALL great feats are accomplished one small step at a time.”
— Og Mandino
58. “I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand.”
— Og Mandino
59. “So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist.”
— Og Mandino
60. “All the gold in the world cannot buy a dying man one more breath – so what does that make today worth?”
— Og Mandino
61. “You can never win when you wear the ugly cloak of self-pity and the sour sound of whining.”
— Og Mandino
62. “Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again.”
— Og Mandino
63. “No, my son, do not aspire for wealth and labor not only to be rich. Strive instead for happiness, to be loved and to love, and most importantly to acquire peace of mind and serenity.”
— Og Mandino
64. “You never know what events are going to transpire to get you home.”
— Og Mandino
65. “Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside.”
— Og Mandino
66. “Each problem has a positive side.”
— Og Mandino
67. “Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealousy, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.”
— Og Mandino
68. “My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault-finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more.”
— Og Mandino
69. “Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find “tomorrow” on the calendars of fools.”
— Og Mandino
70. “I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.”
— Og Mandino
71. “I need not wait for I have the power to choose my own destiny.”
— Og Mandino
72. “Laugh and your life will be lengthened for this is the great secret of long life.”
— Og Mandino
73. “Each misfortune you encounter will carry in it the seed of tomorrow’s good luck.”
— Og Mandino
74. “Don’t let your success of today lay you into complacency for tomorrow. For that is the worst form of failure.”
— Og Mandino
75. “Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along.”
— Og Mandino
76. “A day merely survived is no cause for celebration.”
— Og Mandino
77. “Only a habit can subdue another habit.”
— Og Mandino
78. “Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment.”
— Og Mandino
79. “Green grass grows where dry desert ends.”
— Og Mandino
80. “The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.”
— Og Mandino
81. “I will commit not the terrible crime of aiming too low. I will do the work that a failure will not do. I will always let my reach exceed my grasp.”
— Og Mandino
82. “There is an immeasurable distance between late and too late.”
— Og Mandino
83. “Do the very best that you can, in the things you do best, and you will know in thy soul, that you are the greatest success in the world.”
— Og Mandino
84. “Work as though you would live forever, and live as though you would die today. Go another mile!”
— Og Mandino
85. “Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.”
— Og Mandino
86. “You will move in the direction you are facing.”
— Og Mandino
87. “And even if you have failed at all else in the eyes of the world if you have a loving family, you are a success.”
— Og Mandino
88. “So long as there is breath in me, that long I will persist. For now, I know one of the greatest principles on success; if I persist long enough I will win.”
— Og Mandino
89. “In this world, the greatest rewards of success, wealth, and happiness are usually obtained not through the exercise of special powers such a genius or intellect but through one’s energetic use of simple means and ordinary qualities.”
— Og Mandino
90. “Cherish each hour of this day for it can NEVER return.”
— Og Mandino
