Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

The line expresses a characteristically Thoreauvian suspicion of status-seeking and a preference for absorbed, purposeful labor. It suggests that “success” is often an indirect byproduct of commitment to one’s work, craft, or principles rather than the result of anxious self-promotion or fixation on outcomes. The aphorism also implies a psychological truth: attention spent monitoring recognition can dilute the sustained effort and experimentation that actually produces achievement. Read in a broader nineteenth-century American context, it aligns with ideals of self-reliance and integrity—valuing the quality of one’s life and work over public applause.