Today marks the birthday of Earl Nightingale (1921–89,) American radio personality and motivational speaker and author. This “Dean of Personal Development” authored The Strangest Secret, widely admired as a great motivational work.

Nightingale was the writer and commentator of the popular syndicated radio show Our Changing World. He penned and recorded over 7,000 radio programs and 250 audio programs on motivation, personality development, and leading a meaningful life.

In 1950, Nightingale read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937) and was inspired by the adage “we become what we think about.” This was the foundation of his tape-record and his book The Strangest Secret (1956,) which sold millions of copies. Nightingale defined success as “the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. If a man is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where he’s going, that man is a success. If he’s not doing that, he’s a failure. And there you have the trouble today; it’s conformity—people acting like everyone without knowing why, without knowing where they’re going.”

Inspirational Quotations by Earl Nightingale

Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
—Earl Nightingale

Whenever we’re afraid, it’s because we don’t know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.
—Earl Nightingale

The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!
—Earl Nightingale

All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.
—Earl Nightingale

Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.
—Earl Nightingale

Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
—Earl Nightingale

Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.
—Earl Nightingale

The big thing is that you know what you want.
—Earl Nightingale

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.
—Earl Nightingale

For a person to build a rich and rewarding life for himself, there are certain qualities and bits of knowledge that he needs to acquire. There are also things, harmful attitudes, superstitions, and emotions that he needs to chip away. A person needs to chip away everything that doesn’t look like the person he or she most wants to become.
—Earl Nightingale

We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.
—Earl Nightingale

We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.
—Earl Nightingale

A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before we changed.
—Earl Nightingale

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

All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord.
—Earl Nightingale

Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away.
—Earl Nightingale

Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.
—Earl Nightingale