Success Quote by Charles Revson

A cosmetics tycoon telling you to change your attitude hits different than the same line on a throw pillow. Charles Revson built Revlon in an era when “fate” often meant hard constraints: the Great Depression’s hangover, a world war, class ceilings, anti-immigrant bias, the old-boy networks that decided who got capital and who got condescension. Coming from a businessman, the quote isn’t a dreamy sermon about inner peace; it’s a pragmatic pivot from what you can’t control to what you can still weaponize.

The intent is managerial as much as personal. Revson is talking about leverage: when the market turns, when a deal dies, when a competitor beats you to the shelf, you don’t get the luxury of metaphysical despair. You recalibrate your posture, because posture becomes strategy. In business, attitude isn’t just mood; it’s risk tolerance, salesmanship, the willingness to keep pitching after rejection, the ability to make other people believe there’s momentum even when there isn’t.

The subtext is unsentimental and slightly coercive: your feelings are adjustable, so adjust them. That can sound empowering, but it also carries a corporate edge that modern ears recognize: if you’re stuck, the system may not be the problem, you are. Still, the line works because it acknowledges constraint without romanticizing it. Fate exists; it just doesn’t get the final word on your next move.