Here you will learn American Success, Success Secrets, Success Quote
Page 21 of
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If, in our enlightened days,
the man in the street, who is better informed than in days of yore, lends a
less willing ear to these marvelous tales, he is still too often the dupe of
politicians, who, armed with a faith that they have elevated into a religion,
try to make him believe that they can show him the way to renew the golden age.
How much better it would be to explain to the toiler and to the artisan that
hard work and perseverance are the only means by which they can attain to
fortune, which never flies from us when we go in search of it armed with these
two virtues.
By advocating such truths as this we could entirely prevent the dejection that
is always produced by the disillusionment that follows hard upon the heels of
false enthusiasm.
It would also put an effective stop to the disorders which are the inevitable
outcome of labor that has no result.
Those who are really determined upon the success of the work to which they are
devoted will guard themselves most carefully from too sudden exaltations.
They will also avoid the excesses of overwork. Satiety seizes upon those who
have not the sense to measure out the amount of fatigue that they are able to
endure without harm to themselves.
All great results are achieved by sustained effort and not by occasional spurts.
It is by means of a moderate, but intelligent and regular amount of toil that
men of fame have written their names on the scroll of posterity.
Nothing is more to be avoided than the tendency to overtax one's strength, as it
invariably involves a period of enforced inactivity.
The fable of the hare and the tortoise will hold eternally true. It is of no use
to run with speed and to make prodigious leaps, if one dreams all along the
road, or if each dash forward is followed by a long period of rest.
The enthusiast can well be compared with the hare in the fable.
The tortoise is the man of perseverance, who does not set out with the idea of
beating any records, but who pursues the even tenor of his way without thinking
of anything but the goal at which he aims.
Nothing is less profitable than work which is done by fits and starts.
Disconnected work, performed without the spirit of continuity, never produced
results that are satisfactory.
Besides, it tends to make us strangers to that perseverance that one finds to be
the base and the foundation of all great achievements.
Unequal efforts, accomplished at first with feverish energy, then abandoned, to
be taken up again later on, will achieve the same result as the condition of
mind of the craftsman, who, following a new idea every moment, finds his work
completely altered from his original conception.
Every piece of work, whether mental or physical, demands an assimilation, a
continuity, that can only be obtained by perseverance, which will allow
extraneous ideas no opportunity of obtruding themselves upon the mind.
It is indispensable that one should be posses of a single idea in order to
accomplish the realization of one's ideals. It is for this reason that we should
be distrustful of enthusiasm, because, when it has once shown us our projects
in too attractive a light, it will reduce us to utter despair when we see them
at length strip of all the fictitious ornaments with which it pleased our fancy
to decorate them.
The higher we climb in this decoration the worse the inevitable fall will hurt
us, and the time we spend in recovering from our wounds is completely lost to
perseverance, unless we use it to make up our minds never again to attempt such
impossible ascents.
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