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“Preparation is the key to success,” is an old adage that we’ve all heard before. It’s especially true when it comes to personal development and achieving your goals. Having a plan and being prepared can mean the difference between success and failure when taking on challenges.
Many have had their own insights and have offered up their thoughts on the importance of preparation.
Preparation helps us to be aware of the potential pitfalls, find ways around obstacles, and focus our efforts. It can help us stay organized, plan ahead, and be better equipped to take on whatever comes our way.
From insightful quotes from famous leaders to words of wisdom from people from all walks of life, this collection of quotes on preparation is sure to offer up inspiring and insightful ideas to help you along on your path of personal development.
Quotes About Preparation and Being Ready for Success
Chinese proverb
“If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.”
Napoléon Bonaparte
“If I always appear prepared, it is because before entering an undertaking, I have meditated long and have foreseen what might occur. It is not genius where reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and preparation.”
“God is on the side with the best artillery.”
“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.”
Louis Pasteur
“Fortune favors the prepared mind.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Plans are worthless, but planning is indispensable.”
James Carse
“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.”
– James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
Mike Tyson
“Everyone has a plan until he gets punched in the face.”
Calvin Coolidge
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Eric Hoffer
“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement.”
Benjamin Franklin
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Jim Rohn
“Smile at adversity, and act quickly to eliminate it. Expect adversity, for it shall surely appear. Be grateful for adversity, for it forces the human spirit to grow—for surely, the human character is formed not in the absence of difficulty but in our response to difficulty.”
Dutch proverb
“Too soon old, too late smart.”
William Shakespeare , Henry V
“All things are ready, if our mind be so.”
– William Shakespeare, Henry V
Ernest Hemingway
“Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
– Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Alexandre Dumas
“Man upon this earth must expect everything, and ought to face everything.”
– Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask
Alain de Botton
“After 40 (old age for most of man’s history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.”
Winston Churchill
“To every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for that which would be his finest hour.”
Niccoló Machiavelli
“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”
Miyamoto Musashi
“Becoming the opponent means you should put yourself in an opponent’s place and think from the opponent’s point of view.”
– Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
Idowu Koyenikan
“Opportunity does not waste time with those who are unprepared.”
