156 quotes about Opportunity

If you real desire is to be good, there is no need to wait for the money before you do it; you can do it now, this very moment, and just where you are.

Allen, James

You can't always wait for the guys at the top. Every manager at every level in the organization has an opportunity, big or small, to do something. Every manager's got some sphere of autonomy. Don't pass the buck up the line.

Anderson, Bob

I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization

Arbiter, Detronius

Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation.

Austen, Jane

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Bacon, Francis

Opportunity makes a thief.

Bacon, Francis

Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity that was at hand.

Barton, Bruce

Opportunities are everywhere. The recession might be drawing to a close, but its continuing legacy is employers' reliance on short-term staff. There may be fewer jobs for life, but there are more jobs in a lifetime.

Benington, Lucy

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

Berle, Milton

Lack of opportunity is often nothing more than lack of purpose or direction

Best of Bits and Pieces

Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.

Branson, Richard

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

Brown Jr., H. Jackson

Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.

Brown Jr., H. Jackson

Today's opportunities erase yesterday's failures.

Brown, Gene

If you view all the things that happen to you, both good and bad, as opportunities, then you operate out of a higher level of consciousness.

Brown, Les

You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing.

Buffett, Warren

Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be misappraised.

Buffett, Warren

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.

Burroughs, John

When you feel that you have reached the end and that you cannot go one step further, when life seems to be drained of all purpose: What a wonderful opportunity o start all over again, to turn over a new page.

Caddy, Eileen

This American system of ours. call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.

Capone, Al

Talent alone won't make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: Are your ready?

Carson, Johnny

Right now a moment is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint! To do that we must put all else out of our minds. We must become that moment, make ourselves a sensitive recording plate. give the image of what we actually see, forgetting everything that has been seen before our time.

Cezanne, Paul

Be ready when opportunity comes. Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet.

Chapin Jr., Roy D.

The best men are not those who have waited for chances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the chance; and made chance the servitor.

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Churchill, Winston

Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.

Collier, Jeremy

Start where you are. Distant fields always look greener, but opportunity lies right where you are. Take advantage of every opportunity of service.

Collier, Robert

You can do anything you think you can. This knowledge is literally the gift of the gods, for through it you can solve every human problem. It should make of you an incurable optimist. It is the open door.

Collier, Robert

As fast as each opportunity presents itself, use it! No matter how tiny an opportunity it may be, use it!

Collier, Robert

Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.

Colton, Charles Caleb

Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.

Colton, Charles Caleb

Many of us spend our lives searching for success when it is usually so close that we can reach out and touch it.

Conwell, Russel H.

Too often the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.

Coolidge, Rita

The same fence that shuts others out shuts you in.

Copeland, William Taylor

There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job.

Crane, George W.

Make the iron hot by striking it.

Cromwell, Oliver

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

Demosthenes

Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.

Dickinson, Emily

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

Disraeli, Benjamin

A good deal happens in a man's life that he isn't responsible for. Fortunate openings occur; but it is safe to remember that such breaks are occurring all the time, and other things being equal, the advantage goes to the man who is ready.

Downs, Lawrence

Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!

Dryden, John

There is far more opportunity than there is ability.

Edison, Thomas A.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Edison, Thomas A.

Be an opener of doors.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Every wall is a door.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The sad truth is that opportunity doesn't knock twice. You can put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may never come. Where will you be a few years down the line. Will it be everything you dreamed of. We seal our fate with the choices we take, but don't give a second thought to the chances we take.

Estefan, Gloria

Little opportunities should be improved.

FeNelon, Francois

Sometimes only a change of viewpoint is needed to convert a tiresome duty into an interesting opportunity.

Flanders, Alberta

Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity's door if you ardently wish to enter.

Forbes, B. C.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

Franklin, Benjamin

There are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them.

Getty, J. Paul

Enlarge the opportunity and the person will expand to fill it

Ginzberg, Eli

The right man is the one that seizes the moment.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

You must make your own opportunities.

Gough, John B.

If you want to succeed in the world you must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh wave is a long time a-coming. You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the road side until someone comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence.

Gough, John B.

One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity.

Gracian, Baltasar

You can't wait for the phone to ring. You have to ring them.

Grade, Lord Lew

Was a great high wall there that tried to stop me. Was a great big sign there said private Property but on the back side it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me.

Guthrie, Woody

Some people expect the door of opportunity to be opened with an electric eye.

Hendricks, Howard

A chip on the shoulder indicates that there is wood higher up.

Herbert, Jack

Don't ever slam a door, you might want to go back.

Herold, Don

Opportunity often comes in disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

Hill, Napoleon

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

Hill, Napoleon

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

Hoffer, Eric

It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

Hoffer, Eric

About the time we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

Let us my friends snatch our opportunity form the passing day.

Horace

We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

Iacocca, Lee

When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through.

Jackson, Jesse

We must open the doors of opportunity.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

Many do with opportunities as children do at the seashore; they fill their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through, one by one, till all are gone.

Jones, Thomas

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

Kaiser, Henry J.

When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don't see the one that has opened for us.

Keller, Helen

Written in Chinese, the word crisis, is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represent opportunity.

Kennedy, John F.

There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.

Kettering, Charles F.

Take a lesson from the mosquito. She never waits for an opening -- she makes one.

Kirkpatrick, Kirk

Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily.

Koch, Sally

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.

Krishna, Rama

Some say opportunity knocks only once, That is not true. Opportunity knocks all the time, but you have to be ready for it. If the chance comes, you must have the equipment to take advantage of it.

L'Amour, Louis

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.

Landers, Ann

Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

When you have the opportunity, you strike.

Laver, Rod

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

Lee, Bruce

One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.

Lehmann, Rosamond

What is opportunity, and when does it knock? It never knocks. You can wait a whole lifetime, listening, hoping, and you will hear no knocking. None at all. You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live -- with your self-respect alive and growing.

Maltz, Maxwell

Opportunities, many times, are so small that we glimpse them not and yet they are often the seeds of great enterprises. Opportunities are also everywhere and so you must always let your hook be hanging. When you least expect it, a great fish will swim by.

Mandino, Og

The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating mind. Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every newspaper article is an opportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is an opportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity -- an opportunity to be polite -- an opportunity to be manly -- an opportunity to be honest -- an opportunity to make friends.

Marden, Orison Swett

It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.

Marden, Orison Swett

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.

Marden, Orison Swett

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

Marden, Orison Swett

Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

Marx, Karl

Our opportunities to do good are our talents.

Mather, Cotton

Not being beautiful was the true blessing... Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

Meir, Golda

People wait for opportunity to come along...yet it is there every morning.

Menace, Dennis the

You are, at this moment, standing, right in the middle of your own acres of diamonds.

Nightingale, Earl

Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together.

Nightingale, Earl

Always have your hook baited, in the pool you least think, there will be a fish.

Ovid

If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.

Peters, Thomas J.

If you see the bandwagon you've missed it.

Phillips, James

Opportunities neglected can never be recovered.

Proverb

The back of one door is the face of another.

Proverb

Four things come not back. The spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, ad the neglected opportunity.

Proverb, Arabian

When the sun rises, it rises for everyone.

Proverb, Cuban

Opportunity creates desire.

Proverb, Dutch

Some men go through a forest and see no firewood.

Proverb, English

When fortune knocks open the door.

Proverb, German

Men never moan over the opportunities lost to do good, only the opportunities to be bad.

Proverb, Greek

Where one door closes, another opens.

Quijote, Don

We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen.

Rainer, Maria Rilke

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

Rockefeller, John D.

One cannot expect to coast along and rise automatically to the top, no matter what friends you may have in the company. There may have been a time when, in large corporations, a person could rise simply because he had a stock interest or because he had friends in top management. That's not true today. Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you're not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.

Rockerfeller, David

The follies which a man regrets most in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.

Rowland, Helen

Even a blind dog can find a bone every so often.

Sayle, Alexi

Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity

Schucman, Helen

Luck take a second look at what appears to be someone's good luck. You'll find not luck but preparation, planning, and success-producing thinking.

Schwartz, David J.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill done!

Shakespeare, William

We must not only strike the iron while it is hot, we must strike it until it is hot.

Sharp, Tom

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

Shaw, George Bernard

Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.

Smiles, Samuel

Welcome every problem as an opportunity. Each moment is the great challenge, the best thing that ever happened to you . The more difficult the problem, the greater the challenge in working it out.

Speare, Grace

There is only one optimist. He has been here since man has been on this earth, and that is man himself. If we hadn't had such a magnificent optimism to carry us through all these things, we wouldn't be here. We have survived it on our optimism.

Steichen, Edward

Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.

Sugarman, Joseph

Opportunity is lost by deliberation.

Syrus, Publilius

I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.

Teasdale, Sara

People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

Thatcher, Margaret

Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

The door of opportunity is wide open if you are prepared.

Unknown, Source

Do not wait for ideal circumstances nor for the best opportunities; they will never come.

Unknown, Source

Some people steer by the light from the stars, while others steer by the lights from each passing ship.

Unknown, Source

Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.

Unknown, Source

Opportunity is no more than a better way of serving and providing for humanities needs.

Unknown, Source

Opportunity is ever worth expecting; let your hook be ever hanging ready, the fish will be in the pool where you least imagine it to be.

Unknown, Source

Opportunity always looks better going than coming.

Unknown, Source

Opportunities comes from knocking on doors until they open.

Unknown, Source

A sign on the door of Opportunity reads Push.

Unknown, Source

A wise man doesn't just wait for the right opportunity, He creates the right opportunity.

Unknown, Source

God supplies us with the opportunity, but He cannot take advantage of it for us.

Unknown, Source

Few cases of eyestrain have been developed by looking on the bright side of things.

Unknown, Source

Every minute starts an hour and every minute is a new opportunity. Each time the clock ticks you have a chance to start over, to say, do, think, or feel something in such a way that you and the world are better for it.

Unknown, Source

Do you see difficulties in every opportunity or opportunities in every difficulty?

Unknown, Source

Many people seem to think that opportunity means a chance to get money without earning it.

Unknown, Source

Opportunities are never lost; they are taken by others.

Unknown, Source

To recognize an opportunity and use it is the difference between success and failure.

Unknown, Source

Many of us have heard opportunity knocking at our door, but by the time we unhooked the chain, pushed back the bolt, turned two locks, and shuts off the burglar alarm -- it was gone.

Unknown, Source

Why are there so many people who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity?

Unknown, Source

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.

Vauvenargues, Marquis De

Never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.

Vidal, Gore

Opportunities multiply as they are seized, they die when neglected.

Wicker, John

Opportunity multiply as they are seized.

Wicker, John

One of the earliest lessons I learned as a child was that if you looked away from something, it might not be there when you looked back.

Wideman, John Edgar

He's got the whole world at his feet and he can't find his shoes.

Williamson, John

Arrange Whatever pieces come your way.

Woolf, Virginia

It's better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.

Young Jr., Whitney

Remember, a chip on the shoulder is a sure sign of wood higher up.

Young, Brigham