It’s funny how a lot of success quotes are attributed to semi-famous motivational speakers of whom we may or may not have heard. Here are a few from successful people you may have actually heard of:

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
- Bill Cosby

The Lord gave us two ends — one to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use the most.
- Ann Landers

Success is the child of audacity.
- Benjamin Disraeli

You never become a howling success by just howling.
- Bob Harrington

The road to success is always under construction
- Lily Tomlin

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.
- David Brinkley

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
- Voltaire

Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
- Earl Wilson

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
- Jean Cocturan

Everybody loves success, but they hate successful people.
- John McEnroe

And that Antimetabole:

Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.
- Jim Backus

If at first you don’t succeed, try to hide your astonishment.
- Harry F. Banks

If at first you don’t succeed, take the tax loss.
- Kirk Kirkpatrick

If at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie again.
- Laurence J. Peter

If at first you don’t succeed; you are running about average.
- M. H. Alderson

If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.
- Quentin Crisp

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.
- W. C. Fields

We all probably had a gym teacher at some point that said things like “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude”. They were probably reading Zig Ziglar. Who knew?

An optimist is someone who goes after Moby Dick in a rowboat and takes the tartar sauce with him.
- Zig Ziglar

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

Success is dependent upon the glands – sweat glands.
- Zig Ziglar

Remember that failure is an event, not a person.
- Zig Ziglar

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.
- Zig Ziglar

Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
Zig Ziglar

Leonardo da Vinci spent 12 years painting the Mona Lisa’s lips.

The term “Gothic” originally had a negative connotation implying that medieval cathedrals were so crude that only a Goth could produce them.

During his entire life, artist Vincent Van Gogh sold just one painting; “Red Vineyard at Arles”. His work “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” sold for $82.5 million in 1990.

Rodin died of frostbite in 1917 when the French government refused him financial aid for a flat, yet kept his statues warmly housed in museums.

As someone who has spent a few hundred hours quote-wrangling, I get a little tired of the more popular quotes by famous artists. Here a couple of personal faves of mine:

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.
G.K. Chesterton

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work.  I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw.  She stared at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?”
-Howard Ikemoto

There are lots of quotes about art and God, the problem is, they’re always so darn LONG-WINDED. As Dorothy Parker said “Brevity is the soul of lingerie”. Oh wait. Never mind.  Here are some quickies on art and the divine:

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
- André Gide

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
- Michelangelo

Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.
-Stella Adler

There’s a lot they don’t teach you at art school…

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep.
-Scott Adams

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.
-Edgar Degas

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
Paul Valery

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need.
- Auguste Rodin

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.
-Charles Horton Cooley

The town we’re based in annually hosts one of the largest art shows in the world, the Ann Arbor Art Fair. The more cynical locals have a worn-out saying that they think is funny: “It’s not art, and it’s not fair”. So this week’s quotes are dedicated to art, and we thought we’d start with more cynicism, but up the highbrow quotient a bit:

An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he – for some reason – thinks it would be a good idea to give them.
-Andy Warhol

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
-Frank Zappa

Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum.
-Edmond & Jules de Goncourt

An art critic is someone who appreciates art, except for any particular piece of art.
-Robert Brault

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
-Ambrose Bierce

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It To Beaver.”

Percentage of American homes with a television: over 99%. Percentage with 3 or more: 66 %

Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion. Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49%.

By the age of 65, the average American will have spent 9 years watching television