Quotable Quotes: Opportunity
by Miki Saxon
There is no end of quotes about opportunity, but I chose these because they motivate me to look beyond the obvious.
It is often asked, if there are so many opportunities in life, why don’t more people take advantage of theirs? Although many have explained this, both before and since, I like the way Thomas Edison put it best, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Opportunity is much like my idea of leadership, that is, it is in the instance. Or as Orison Swett Marden said, “Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.”
No matter your background you have choices as to the kind of life you lead; perhaps not in terms of career and finances, but you are what you make of yourself as a human being. Being born to certain circumstances is not guarantee that you will live and die in them. As Douglas MacArthur said, “There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.”
Finally, I’d like to leave you with a bit of irreverence. Remember The Peter Principle? For those who don’t the principle is as follows,
“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence … in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties … Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.”
The source of both book and principle is Dr. Laurence J. Peter who also said, “Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.”
Those who constantly seek out new opportunities and work to achieve them are the least likely to fall victim to the Peter Principle.
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