Success Quote by Alice Foote MacDougall

MacDougall frames success less as a trophy you earn and more as a stance you practice: mental openness paired with decisive action. The line works because it refuses the comforting myth that life is a straight meritocracy while also rejecting pure fatalism. Opportunity is treated as partly external (it "comes") and partly internal (you notice it, you take it). That tension gives the quote its motivational bite: it’s not about dreaming harder; it’s about training perception and courage.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke to two common self-sabotages. One is rigidity: the mind that’s already decided what life should look like tends to miss what life is offering. The other is hesitation dressed up as virtue: endless preparation, prudence, and "waiting for the right time" can be a socially acceptable way of refusing risk. MacDougall’s phrasing makes seizing opportunity sound almost like a moral obligation, as if the failure isn’t bad luck but a lapse in readiness.

Context matters. Alice Foote MacDougall wasn’t just a writer; she was also a prominent entrepreneur who built a public persona around hustle and self-invention in an era when women’s access to capital, authority, and public space was constrained. Read through that lens, "keeping one's mind open" becomes a survival tactic and a strategy for mobility: when traditional pathways are blocked, you scan for side doors. The quote’s intent isn’t naive optimism; it’s pragmatic encouragement to stay elastic, alert, and unembarrassed about grasping the moment.