You can't always wait for the guys at the top. Every manager at every level in the organization has an opportunity, big or small, to do something. Every manager's got some sphere of autonomy. Don't pass the buck up the line.

I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Opportunities are everywhere. The recession might be drawing to a close, but its continuing legacy is employers' reliance on short-term staff. There may be fewer jobs for life, but there are more jobs in a lifetime.

Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.

If you view all the things that happen to you, both good and bad, as opportunities, then you operate out of a higher level of consciousness.

Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be misappraised.

Be ready when opportunity comes. Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.

Too often the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.

The same fence that shuts others out shuts you in.

Make the iron hot by striking it.

A good deal happens in a man's life that he isn't responsible for. Fortunate openings occur; but it is safe to remember that such "breaks" are occurring all the time, and other things being equal, the advantage goes to the man who is ready.

Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!

There is far more opportunity than there is ability.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

The sad truth is that opportunity doesn't knock twice. You can put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may never come. Where will you be a few years down the line. Will it be everything you dreamed of. We seal our fate with the choices we take, but don't give a second thought to the chances we take.

Sometimes only a change of viewpoint is needed to convert a tiresome duty into an interesting opportunity.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

Enlarge the opportunity and the person will expand to fill it

If you want to succeed in the world you must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh wave is a long time a-coming. You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the road side until someone comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence.

You can't wait for the phone to ring. You have to ring them.

Some people expect the door of opportunity to be opened with an electric eye.

When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through.

Take a lesson from the mosquito. She never waits for an opening -- she makes one.

Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us daily.

When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.

One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.

What is opportunity, and when does it knock? It never knocks. You can wait a whole lifetime, listening, hoping, and you will hear no knocking. None at all. You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live -- with your self-respect alive and growing.

It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.

Our opportunities to do good are our talents.

People wait for opportunity to come along...yet it is there every morning.

Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together.

Always have your hook baited, in the pool you least think, there will be a fish.

The back of one door is the face of another.

When the sun rises, it rises for everyone.

Some men go through a forest and see no firewood.

Where one door closes, another opens.

We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen.

Even a blind dog can find a bone every so often.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.

There is only one optimist. He has been here since man has been on this earth, and that is "man" himself. If we hadn't had such a magnificent optimism to carry us through all these things, we wouldn't be here. We have survived it on our optimism.

People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it; for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.

A wise man doesn't just wait for the right opportunity, He creates the right opportunity.

Do not wait for ideal circumstances nor for the best opportunities; they will never come.

Many of us have heard opportunity knocking at our door, but by the time we unhooked the chain, pushed back the bolt, turned two locks, and shuts off the burglar alarm -- it was gone.

Opportunities are never lost; they are taken by others.

Opportunity is ever worth expecting; let your hook be ever hanging ready, the fish will be in the pool where you least imagine it to be.

Opportunity multiply as they are seized.

One of the earliest lessons I learned as a child was that if you looked away from something, it might not be there when you looked back.

It's better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.