Success has as many definitions as there are people and the best ones are those that are private. You know, the ones you think about at 3 am or hug to yourself as you fall asleep at night.

Most of the quotes about success follow predictable lines and there are enough to count instead of sheep if you’re having problems sleeping. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad choice for today, it just means I had to look a little harder to avoid boring you.

Oh well, in a salute to the norm we’ll start with Harry F. Banks comment, “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” Or we can translate it to Miki-speak and say it’s all in your MAP.

And that means, as Adlin Sinclair said, “You are the embodiment of the information you choose to accept and act upon. To change your circumstances you need to change your thinking and subsequent actions.”

Lily Tomlin hit the nail on the head when she said, “The road to success is always under construction”

And Anon backs that up with a nice little play on words, “Success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.” (I love language plays like that.)

Albert Einstein offers up a great formula for success, “If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.” Funny how many people forget just how critical ‘Z’ is to achieving ‘A’.

But it is T.S. Eliot who offers up the real truth of the subject, “Success is relative: It is what we can make out of the mess we have made of things.”

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I think the greatest compliment anyone can receive is to have something they say be deemed ‘wise’ by those around them. It has happened to me a few times and, to be honest, blew me away.

So I went looking for quotes about wisdom and found so many good ones that I’ll post the rest next week.

The thing about wisdom is that it transcends street smarts and learning. As Sandra Carey says, “Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”

Wisdom, like charity, begins at home; Gian Carlo Menotti put it this way, “A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.”

Anon clarifies that advice and takes it a step further, “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Plato said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” Maybe that explains all those talking heads and sound bites that pass for wisdom these days.

Once you achieve even a modicum of wisdom you can’t count on it being permanent. Kahlil Gibran understood that when he said, “Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”

But, as usual, at least for me, it’s Lao Tzu who really hits the nail on wisdom’s head, “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” Sadly, it seems that the higher you go the fewer people take the time for enlightenment.

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Are you getting as tired as I am of the never-ending deceit and downright illegality that keeps coming to light?

Today’s quotes are a lead-in to tomorrow’s post.

A man just dumb enough to be fearless, just bright enough to be dangerous. –Ed Pearce (A lot of them around these days…)

Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. –Ann Landers (Does Blagojevich have a dog? Do Wall Streeters?)

Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind. –Anon (Speed of mouth makes you stupid.)

The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions. –Ellen Glasgow (Got that, guys? Bigger isn’t always better.)

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