Success Quote by W. Clement Stone

Stone is selling a moral vocabulary that flatters the striver while keeping the cash register humming. The line pivots on a comforting paradox: the things that matter most are the ones nobody can confiscate. It’s a neat bit of psychological insulation for an audience living with the constant anxiety of loss - jobs, status, money. By relocating “greatest powers” to the invisible realm (attitude, will, imagination, faith), he offers a kind of portable wealth: recession-proof, boss-proof, even bad-luck-proof.

The subtext is classic self-help capitalism with a velvet glove. “No one can take them” sounds like empowerment, but it also quietly shifts responsibility. If your core assets are internal, then external constraints - poverty, discrimination, illness, plain misfortune - fade into the background story. You’re left with a tighter, tougher bargain: you can’t blame the world, because the world can’t touch the real you.

Then comes the transactional promise: “You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving.” This is reciprocity dressed up as spirituality. It’s not just generosity; it’s investment. Give confidence, energy, service, optimism - and “abundance” returns, conveniently undefined so it can mean money, influence, health, or that hazy sense of being favored by life.

Context matters: Stone, a businessman steeped in mid-century American success culture, is speaking to a nation that sacralized upward mobility. The rhetoric turns inner life into productive capital and altruism into strategy. It works because it offers dignity without demanding systemic critique - and because it makes hope feel like a skill you can practice into profits.