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Success Quote by Henry Hazlitt

"A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means"

About this Quote

Hazlitt’s line reads like a motivational slogan, but it’s really a compact defense of human agency in a world he thought was too eager to outsource responsibility to “systems.” The sentence turns on a quietly radical claim: means are not discovered first and then matched to goals; the goal, when genuinely desired, reorganizes perception. “Will point out” suggests not magic but attention - the way commitment makes certain paths suddenly visible, because you’re scanning for them, tolerating risk, and absorbing feedback instead of browsing options forever.

The subtext is anti-fatalism and, just as pointedly, anti-excuse. If you fail, Hazlitt implies, it’s often because the passion wasn’t strong enough to survive discomfort, boredom, or social friction. That’s bracing, even slightly moralistic: desire isn’t just a feeling, it’s a discipline that produces strategy. “Any object” universalizes the principle, smuggling in a democratic promise that success isn’t reserved for the already initiated; method can be learned if the appetite is real.

Context matters. Hazlitt wrote as a public intellectual in the long 20th century, arguing for individual choice and clear-eyed economics against fashionable collectivist certainties. In that ecosystem, “passion” isn’t romantic - it’s the engine of entrepreneurship, craftsmanship, reform. Still, the line flatters ambition by skipping structural limits: passion may reveal means, but it can’t always purchase them. The quote works because it’s half psychology, half ideology: a neat, optimistic syllogism that turns wanting into a kind of navigation system.

Quote Details

TopicMotivational
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Hazlitt, Henry. (2026, January 16). A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-strong-passion-for-any-object-will-ensure-122390/

Chicago Style
Hazlitt, Henry. "A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-strong-passion-for-any-object-will-ensure-122390/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-strong-passion-for-any-object-will-ensure-122390/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Passion Ensures Success: Hazlitt on Desire Pointing Out the Means
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About the Author

Henry Hazlitt

Henry Hazlitt (November 28, 1894 - July 8, 1993) was a Philosopher from USA.

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