Little Visits with Great Americans
by Orison Swett Marden
Success Maxims
If I were a cobbler, it would be my pride
The best of all cobblers to be;
If I were a tinker, no tinker beside
Should mend an old kettle like me. —Old Song.
People do not lack strength; they lack will. — Victor Hugo.
Every man stamps his own value upon himself, and we are great or little according to our own will. — Samuel Smiles.
The saddest failures in life are those that come from not putting forth of the power and will to succeed. — Whipple.
As men in a crowd instinctively make room for one who would force his way through it, so mankind makes way for one who rushes toward an object beyond them. — Dwight.
There can be no doubt that the captains of industry today, using that term in its broadest sense, are men who began life as poor boys. — Seth Low.
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, And so make life, death and the vast forever one grand, sweet song. Charles Kingsley.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. — Benjamin Franklin.
The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man, is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happiness. — Ralph Waldo Emerson.
A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. — Francis Bacon.
The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation; and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine. . . . Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and sends us home to add one stroke of faithful work. — Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Never give up: for the wisest is boldest,
Knowing that Providence mingles the cup;
And of all maxims, the best, as the oldest.
Is the stern watchword of ' Never give up !' " —Holmes.
I find nothing so singular in life as this: that everything opposing appears to lose its substance the moment one actually grapples with it. — Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance, and make a seeming impossibility give way. — Jeremy Collier.
The truest wisdom is a resolute determination. — Napoleon I.
He wants wit, that wants resolved will. — Shakespeare.
When a firm decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how the space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom. — John Foster.
Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. In the assurance of strength there is strength, and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their powers. — Bovee.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control—these three alone lead life to sovereign power. — Alfred Lord Tennyson.
There is no fate! Between the thought and the success, God is the only agent. — Edward Bulwer.
Character must stand behind and back up everything—the sermon, the poem, the picture, the play. None of them is worth a straw without it.—J. G. Holland.
I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone. — Gilpin.
Doing well depends upon doing completely. — Persian Proverb.
Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up. — President Garfield.
We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name for Opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race. Ralph Waldo Emerson.