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“How
to Develop Self-Confidence
In Speech and Manner” eBook Online Version
Every man who aspires to right and lofty thinking should shut the door of his mind against fear thought and negative thought as he would against the bitterest foes. Fear thought works its way cunningly, by plausible excuse and subterfuge, until it holds a man in its death-like grasp. It subdues, discourages, weakens, intimidates, and at last brands its victim a failure and outcast. To harbor it in one's mind is to entertain an enemy.
Right thinking means that which constructs, strengthens, and ennobles. It means better manhood, the pluck to do and to dare, and the heroism of mighty endeavor. It knows no limitation, but reaches out daily for new conquests. It is a power unto itself, growing through its own use.
Our habits of thought must be governed by fixed principles. One clear-cut, positive suggestion made in good time may frighten off a thousand petty negative thoughts. The thing we repeat frequently enough in our mind comes to acquire undisputed authority. We should not seek to perform some one great act of courage, but courageously perform all acts, however small, of our every-day life. Pascal says:
"Eight fear comes from faith, wrong fear from doubt; the right fear, joined to hope, because it is born of faith and we hope in the God in whom we believe; the wrong, joined to despair, because we fear the God in whom we have faith; some fear to lose Him, others fear to find Him."
Let us persist in our aim to think right, and to do right, knowing that "true courage consists in long persevering patience." Let us more earnestly direct our thought toward the lofty and sublime. Above all let us seek the best sources of inspiration, that the great thoughts of other men may become our thoughts, and that we may rise into the fullness of our rich inheritance.
Chapter V
SOURCES OP INSPIRATION
The masterful thoughts of great minds are ours for the asking. A mans intent upon developing his self-confidence will read the biographies of such men as Caesar, Napoleon, Wellington, Milton, Goethe, Macaulay, Mozart, Wilberforce, Tennyson, Ruskin, Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln, and Phillips Brooks. It develops a man's self-confidence to study biography and to know what other men have done in the face of difficulty and discouragement. When he reads what they have done, he has a burning desire to go and do likewise. Just as "we recognize in a work of genius our own rejected thoughts," so we often see ourselves in the pages of a great book. Who could fail to be inspired by such a description of unaffected self-confidence as this of Washington:
"No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life. Washington was grave and courteous in address: his manners were simple and unpretentious; his silence and the serene calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self-mastery; but there was little in his outer bearing to reveal the grandeur of soul which lifts his figure, with all the simple majesty of an ancient statue, out of the smaller passions, the meaner impulses of the world around him. ... It was only as the weary fight went on that the colonists learned little by little the greatness of their leader--his clear judgment, his heroic endurance, his silence under difficulties, his calmness in the hour of danger or defeat, the patience with which he waited, the quickness and hardness with which he struck, the lofty and serene sense of duty that never swerved from its task through resentment or jealousy, that never through war or peace felt the touch of a mean ambition, that knew no aim save that of guarding the freedom of his fellow countrymen, and no personal longing save that of returning to his own fireside when their freedom was secured."
It was Correggio who, after looking at the work of Michelangelo, exclaimed, "And I, too, am a painter!" By closely observing the lives of great men, we assume some of their great qualities. They embody the wisdom of their time, and pass it on to us as our heritage. "I am a part of every man I have met," said a sympathetic writer, and one might as truthfully say, "I am part of all I have read.'' Channing well says:
"It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levelers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am, no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof; if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live." The student of self-confidence should choose his books as carefully as he does his personal friends. Books are our intimate companions, with the unusual privilege of setting them down or taking them up at will. It is not worth while to spend any time over a book that does not cause the reader to raise from it a better man. "Youth is a prophesy, and old age a history, '' but great books never grow old and are ours to command and serve at will.
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