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“How
to Develop Self-Confidence
In Speech and Manner” eBook Online Version
In the still air the music lies unheard; in the rough marble beauty hides unseen; to wake the music and the beauty, needs the master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. Great Master, touch us with Thy skilful hand, let not the music that is in us die; Great Sculptor, hew and polish us, nor let, hidden and lost, Thy form within us lie. Spare not the stroke, do with us as Thou wilt; Let there be naught unfinished, broken, marred; complete Thy purpose that we may become Thy perfect image, O our God and Lord!--Bonar.
I venture to point out to you what is the best temperament, namely, a combination of the desponding and resolute; or, as I had better express it, of the apprehensive and the resolute. Such is the temperament of great commanders. Secretly, they rely upon nothing and upon nobody. There is such a powerful element of failure in all human affairs, that a shrewd man is always saying to himself, "What shall I do, if that which I count upon does not come out as I expect?" This foresight dwarfs and crushes all but men of great resolution.--Sir Arthur Helps.
Everything yields before the strong and earnest will. It grows by exercise. It excites confidence in others, while it takes to itself the lead. Difficulties before which mere cleverness fails, and which leave the irresolute prostrate and helpless, vanish before it. They not only do not impede its progress, but it often makes them stepping-stones to a higher and more enduring triumph.--Tulloch.
No life is wasted unless it ends in sloth, dishonesty or cowardice.--Huxley.
"What shall I do lest life in silence pass?" and if it do, and never prompt the bray of noisy brass, what need'st thou rue? Remember ay the ocean deeps are mute; the shallows roar; worth is the ocean--fame is the bruit along the shore. "What shall I do to be forever known?"--Thy duty ever! "This did full many who yet sleep unknown"--Oh! never, never! Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown whom thou know'st not? By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown, divine their lot. "What shall I do to gain eternal life? Discharge aright the simple dues with which each day is rife?" Yea, with thy might. Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise, will life be fled, while he who ever acts as conscience cries shall live, though dead.--Schiller.
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
--Disraeli.
Without our hopes, without our fears, without the home that plighted love endears, without the smile from partial beauty won, oh! what were man?--a world without a sun.
--Campbell.
I have known instances of men of naturally moderate powers of mind who, by a disinterested love of truth, and their fellow creatures, have gradually risen to no small force and enlargement of thought. Some of the most useful teachers in the pulpit and in schools have owed their power of enlightening others, not so much to any natural superiority as to the simplicity, impartiality, and disinterestedness of their minds, to their readiness to live and die for the truth.--William Elleby Channing.
Courage in danger is half the battle.--Plautus.
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