Mary Kay Ash

Mary Kay Ash- "I believe that most successful people are ordinary people with extraordinary determination."


When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser… Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.

Mary Kay Ash

You cannot keep determined people from success. If you place stumbling blocks in their way, they will use them for stepping-stones and climb to new heights.

Mary Kay Ash

We must have a theme, a goal a purpose in our lives. If you don’t know where you’re aiming, you don’t have a goal.

Mary Kay Ash

Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist.

Mary Kay Ash

Those who are blessed with the most talent don’t necessarily outperform everyone else. It’s the people with follow-through who excel.

Mary Kay Ash

Every failure, obstacle or hardship is an opportunity in disguise. Success in many cases is failure turned inside out.

Mary Kay Ash

I believe that most successful people are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.

Mary Kay Ash

Dare to grow into your dreams and claim this as your motto: Let it be me.

Mary Kay Ash

If you act enthusiastic, you become enthusiastic. A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.

Mary Kay Ash

An average person with average talents and ambition and average education can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals.

Mary Kay Ash

A good goal is like a strenuous exercise – it makes you stretch. Give yourself something to work towards constantly.

Mary Kay Ash

People fall forward to success.

Mary Kay Ash

I was taught to put my best effort into anything I did, and I can honestly say I’ve always done that. Still, there were many times when I failed, many times when I was disappointed. We didn’t set the world on fire from the first day: disappointments, setbacks and work have created the Company as it is today.

Mary Kay Ash

For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.

Mary Kay Ash

We need leaders who add value to the people and the organization they lead; who work for the benefit of others and not just for their own personal gain; who inspire and motivate rather than intimidate and manipulate; who live with people to know their problems and live with God in order to solve them; and who follow a moral compass that points in the right direction regardless of the trends.

Mary Kay Ash

Our Company was begun with only one objective, that of giving women the chance to succeed, an opportunity that simply did not exist in the early ’60s.

Mary Kay Ash

Many women have made the mistake of changing their beliefs to accommodate their work. It must be the other way around.

Mary Kay Ash

Those men didn’t believe a woman had brain matter at all. I learned back then that as long as men didn’t believe women could do anything, women were never going to have a chance.

Mary Kay Ash

I knew that I had been denied opportunities to fulfill my optimum potentials simply because I was a woman. These feelings were not mere indulgences of self-pity, because I had personally known so many other women who had suffered similar injustices.

Mary Kay Ash

You can do it! So often a woman comes to us who desperately needs to hear that. Frequently she is a housewife who has been out of the job market for many years, or who has never worked outside the home. When I see a woman like this, I want to do for her what nobody did for me, in the way of providing opportunities.

Mary Kay Ash

A laurel rested upon becomes wilted.

Mary Kay Ash

Nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.

Mary Kay Ash

Do you know that within your power lies every step you ever dreamed of stepping, and within your power lies every joy you ever dreamed of seeing? Within yourself lies everything you ever dreamed of being. Become everything that God wants you to be. It is within your reach.

Mary Kay Ash

From my own use and the results I had personally received, I knew that these skin-care products were tremendous and with some modifications and high-quality packaging I was sure they would be big sellers!

Mary Kay Ash

Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.

Mary Kay Ash

My mother’s words became the theme of my childhood. They have stayed with me all my life: ‘You can do it.’

Mary Kay Ash

It was the lowest point in my life. I felt like a complete failure as a woman.

Mary Kay Ash

He took my hand in both of his, looked me square in the eye and after a moment said, ‘Somehow I think you will’. Those five words changed my life.

Mary Kay Ash

I envisioned a company in which any woman could become just as successful as she wanted to be. The doors would be wide open to opportunity for women who were willing to pay the price and had the courage to dream.

Mary Kay Ash

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.

Mary Kay Ash

If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.

Mary Kay Ash

You can have anything in this world you want, if you want it badly enough and you’re willing to pay the price. Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.

Mary Kay Ash

God first, family second, career third.

Mary Kay Ash

Over the years, I’ve observed that nearly all high achievers know how to make good of those 1,440 minutes in each day.

Mary Kay Ash

Every silver lining has a cloud.

Mary Kay Ash

When God made men, he was just practicing.

Mary Kay Ash

So many women just don’t know how great they really are. They come to us all vogue outside and vague on the inside.

Mary Kay Ash

The greatest pollution problem we face today is negativity. Eliminate the negative attitude and believe you can do anything. Replace ‘if I can, I hope, maybe’ with ‘I can, I will, I must.

Mary Kay Ash

Listen long enough and the person will generally come up with an adequate solution.

Mary Kay Ash

Criticize the act, not the person.

Mary Kay Ash

The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.

Mary Kay Ash

We must figure out how to remain good wives and good mothers while triumphing in the workplace. This is no easy task for the woman who works full-time. With your priorities in order, press on, and never look back. May all of your dreams come true. You can, indeed, have it all.

Mary Kay Ash

I can say unequivocally that every decision we make at Mary Kay Cosmetics is based on the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Mary Kay Ash

God didn’t have time to create a nobody – just a somebody. I believe that each of us has God-given talents within us waiting to be brought to fruition…Each person is unique and special.

Mary Kay Ash

I have learned to imagine an invisible sign around each person’s neck that says ‘Make me feel important. I never cease to be amazed at how positively people react when they’re made to feel important.

Mary Kay Ash

Everyone wants to be appreciated. So, if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.

Mary Kay Ash

Mary Kay Cosmetics is known for “praising people to success.” We think this is so important, we base our entire marketing plan on it.

Mary Kay Ash

It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.

Mary Kay Ash

We treat our people like royalty. If you honor and serve the people who work for you, they will honor and serve you.

Mary Kay Ash

Some might consider the Golden Rule corny and old-fashioned, but no one can deny its simple truth. Imagine how much better our world would be if everyone lived by this creed.

Mary Kay Ash

The boredom of retirement caused a deepening sense of discontent. I had achieved success, but I felt that my hard work and abilities had never been justly rewarded.

Mary Kay Ash

Before long, I began asking myself, “Why are you theorizing about a dream company?” ‘Why don’t you just start one?’

Mary Kay Ash

My goal is to live my life in such a way that when I die, someone can say, she cared.

Mary Kay Ash

I know now that my legacy is assured. The Company has my name, but it also has a life of its own. And its life’s blood is the philosophy that many thousands of women have made a part of their lives. They embody that philosophy of sharing and giving and, as such, it will always live on.

Mary Kay Ash