Earl Nightingale’s quotes inspire many across the globe. He was well-known for his work as an author and speaker. He was a popular radio program presenter in the 1950s and was given Golden Record for one of his radio shows and later that year he wrote a book called The Strangest Secret that sold 1 million copies.
So read the top 10 quotes by Earl Nightingale and get your punch of inspiration. Earl Nightingale’s quotes are mostly about life, mindset, success, and achieving goals so these quotes are definitely gonna help you down the road of life as they helped me achieve my goals with a positive attitude. So read on.
Table of Contents
1. “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.”
This one is on the top of my Earl Nightingale quotes collections because this one teaches us the most important life lesson — time will pass anyway but how we use that time totally depends on us.
And in this quote, Mr. Nightingale suggests removing the fear of how much time a particular task or goal will take to accomplish because of common human behavior. Before we even start a difficult task, we overwhelm our mind with thoughts like “how will I do it”, “this will take a lot of time” or “I don’t have enough time for it” and “this can never be done.”
But Earl Nightingale suggests you should leave the how part and only focus on your efforts, and time will pass anyways whether you spend that time only thinking and procrastinating or doing some effort. So it’s better you spend your time making something worthwhile because even if the task will not be completed at least you’ll have some progress and you’ll realize you’re a step or two closer to accomplishing that goal.
2. When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself.
This another very popular quote by Earl Nightingale is one of my favorites because it teaches us to give up the toxic habit of judging people around us.
Earl Nightingale is of the view that whenever we judge someone and make assumptions about the other person in our mind we are not actually defining them but we are defining ourselves because these judgments are made up in our mind with our thoughts and how we see others.
A kind-hearted innocent person will always do good for others without judging them because their thoughts are positive and hence they see the world with a positive perspective.
Because we see others as we see ourselves. And if judge people negatively without even knowing them that means there are negative thoughts in our conscious or subconscious mind that reflect on our thought process and the process of making perceptions about others.
3. Whenever we’re afraid, it’s because we don’t know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.
The fear of the unknown is the greatest fear. Humans instinctually fear things and situations that they don’t know about. Earl Nightingale’s quote suggests knowing and learning as much as we can.
In his audio record and book he explains how our mind and thoughts control our outcomes and he says understanding the universe and our own mind can lead us to success and help to grow out of this fear.
4. 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.
Well said by Earl Nightingale. No matter what we do in life, we will not have what we want or wish for just like that. We will only have our desired result only if we work for it.
You know like they say, as you sow shall you reap. You will only have rewards equivalent to the efforts we make. And this is true in every aspect of your life whether you are studying for an exam, doing a job, building a business, trying to make money, or building a relationship.
5. Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become reality.
This quote by Earl Nightingale sums up his whole book and audio — The Strangest Secret in one line. Because this was the very idea that Earl Nightingale described as the Strangest Secret we can achieve a goal if we rightly define it and nourish it in our mind with repetition and emotions.
This means that if you want something just bring that dream clearly in your mind and think about it. In fact, in his 30-day challenge, Earl Nightingale asks the listener to write their Goal on a card and carry it everywhere with them for 30 days and look at it every morning and every once in a while in the day.
This will help you keep your goal on top of your mind and when start thinking positively towards achieving that goal, soon you will realize you will achieve that goal in reality.
6. Success is not the result of making money; making money is the result of success – and success is in direct proportion to our service.
Do I need to say why this quote is my favorite? Well, let me tell you, I am a business coach in the make-money-online niche who help people make a consistent income of $3k to $5k per month by teaching them how to sell solo ads through my training program.
So being in such a niche where I myself encourage people to learn various ways to make money online but for me, it is very important to tell my trainees that making a purposeful life is more important and money is just a means to it, and not the end product.
So I always tell my trainees this Earl Nightingale quote “Success is not the result of making money; making money is the result of success.” So stop chasing money, instead chase success, chase purposefulness and chase your passion and money will follow you.
You can learn more about my program if you don’t know what are solo ads and how you can make a living out of them.
7. Everything in the world we want to do or get done, we must do with and through people.
As I said I’m a business coach and this makes me an entrepreneur too I find this particular Earl Nightingale quote so relating as an entrepreneur because it rightly says – “Everything in the world we want to do or get done, we must do with and through people.”
No matter in what industry you are or what you sell, your workforce is like the wheels of your wagon to take your business to its desired destination. And even if you think outside the business world, our people are the ones who make our lives better or worse so yes if you want to change anything in your life or the world you can not do it without people because people make the change.
8. Our attitude towards life determines life’s attitude towards us.
This need not say is true in every way possible. And if you make this simple yet effective Earl Nightingale’s quote your life mantra, you will surely feel and see a positive change in yourself and as well as your whole life.
So change your attitude if you want to change your life. You can listen to Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret and other positive thinking audios on my YouTube Channel.
9. The mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts.
Our mind is more powerful than we know. According to Earl Nightingale, we can have more control over our lives if we have control over our minds and thoughts.
In his book The Strangest Secret, he talked about this same idea that is quoted here – “The mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts.” This means we can control our mind in a better way if we control our thoughts, our thoughts control our attitude, and our attitude controls our actions. And ultimately, all these things control your outcomes so you should keep your thoughts focused on your goal cutting out all the negativity.
However, controlling your thoughts is not that easy. I know at the beginning you’ll think how can someone even control their thoughts, thoughts are free. Right? But actually, you can do it, at least to some extent.
Listening to Eric Butterworth’s The Art of Thinking might help you have more control over your thoughts.
10. Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
We started this blog with a time quote by Earl Nightingale and now we are ending it with it. This is another Earl Nightingale quote that emphasizes the right use of time.
In these beautiful lines, Earl Nightingale inspires us to never give up on our dreams due to the fear of how much time it will take. And you will see that when you will start working towards your goal you will start getting close to it day after day. But if you’ll spend your time just thinking that how much time it’ll take to accomplish, you are actually wasting time. Even though you think you’re low on time and the task won’t be accomplished still, slow progress is better than no progress.