Estée Lauder

First comes the shy wish. Then you must have the heart to have the dream. Then, you work, and work.

All great things begin with a vision … a dream.

Business is there if you go after it.

People do make their luck by daring to follow their instincts, taking risks and embracing every possibility.

I am a visceral person by nature. I act on instinct, quickly, without pondering possible disaster and without indulging in deep introspection.

When I thought I couldn’t go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.

Most people go along with the crowd. They do things because everybody else does it.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

Keep on trying… each failure is one step closer to a success.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.

Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible.

There will be times when your best isn’t your good enough. There can be many reasons for this, but as long as you give your best you’ll be OK.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.

I’m really clear about what my life mission is now. There’s no more depression or lethargy, and I feel like I’ve returned to the athlete I once was. I’m integrating all the parts of me – jock, musician, writer, poet, philosopher – and becoming stronger as a result.

There is little you can learn from doing nothing.

Yesterday ended last night. Today is a brand-new day.

To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can’t stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do ‘anything.’ If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it.