How to Succeed, page 149 by Orison Swett Marden
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culty. Don't let the maxims of a low prudence daily dinned into your ears lower the tone of your high ambition or check your aspirations. Hope lifts us step by step up the mysterious ladder, the top of which no eye hath ever seen. Though we do not find what hope promised, yet we are stronger for the climbing, and we get a broader outlook upon life which repays the effort. Indeed, if we do not follow where hope beckons, we gradually slide down the ladder in despair. Strive ever to be at the top of your condition. A high standard is absolutely necessary.
CHAPTER XX.
"SAND."
I shall show the cinders of my spirits Through the ashes of my chance. --SHAKESPEARE.
Perseverance is a virtue That wins each god-like act, and plucks success E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger. --WILLIAM HARVARD.
Never say "Fail" again. --RICHELIEU.
It is the one neck nearer that wins the race and shows the blood; the one pull more of the oar that proves the "beefiness of the fellow," as Oxford men say; it is the one march more that wins the campaign; the five minutes' more persistent courage that wins the fight. Though your force be less than another's, you equal and out-master your opponent if you continue it longer and concentrate it more. --SMILES.
"I know no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that tenacity of purpose which, through all changes of companions, or parties, or fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but wearies out opposition and arrives at its port."
"Well done, Tommy Brooks!" exclaimed his teacher in pleased surprise when the dunce of the school spoke his piece without omitting a single word. The other boys had laughed when he rose, for they expected a bad failure. But when the rest of the class had tried, the teacher said Tommy had done the best of all, and gave him the prize.
"And now tell me," said she, "how you learned the poem so well."
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