How To Succeed; Or, Stepping-Stones To Fame And Fortune

Orison Swett Marden, A.M., M.D.

PUBLISHED BY THE CHRISTIAN HERALD, Louis Klopsch , Proprietor, BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK. Copyright, 1896, By Louis Klopsch ....

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CHAPTER I.

The great need at this hour is manly men. We want no goody-goody piety; we have too much of it. We want men who will do right, though the heavens fall, who believe in God, and who will confess Him. —Rev. W. J. Dawson. All the world cries, Where is the man who will save us? We want a man! Don't look so far for this man. You have him at hand. This man—it is you, it is I; it is each one of us!... How to constitute one's self a man? Nothing harder, if one knows not how to will it; nothing easier, if

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CHAPTER II.

You must come to know that each admirable genius is but a successful diver in that sea whose floor of pearls is all your own. —Emerson. The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. —Disraeli. Do the best you can where you are; and, when that is accomplished, God will open a door for you, and a voice will call, "Come up hither into a higher sphere." —Beecher. Our grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly a

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CHAPTER III.

There can be no doubt that the captains of industry to-day, using that term in its broadest sense, are men who began life as poor boys. —Seth Low. Poverty is very terrible, and sometimes kills the very soul within us, but it is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams. —Ouida. "Fifty years ago," said Hezekiah Conant, the millionaire manufacturer and philanthropist of Pawtucket, R. I., "I persuaded my father to let me leave

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CHAPTER IV.

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. —Emerson. The art of putting the right man in the right place is perhaps the first in the science of government, but the art of finding a satisfactory position for the discontented is the most difficult. —Talleyrand. It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distrib

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CHAPTER V.

No man ever made an ill-figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them. —Swift. Blessed is he who has found his work,—let him ask no other blessing. —Carlyle. Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. —Sydney Smith. He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have

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CHAPTER VI.

The gods sell anything and to everybody at a fair price. —Emerson. All desire knowledge, but no one is willing to pay the price. —Juvenal. There is no royal path which leads to geometry. —Euclid. There is no road to success but through a clear, strong purpose. A purpose underlies character, culture, position, attainment of whatever sort. —T. T. Munger. Remember you have not a sinew whose law of strength is not action; you have not a faculty of body, mind, or soul, whose law of improvement is not

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CHAPTER VII.

In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made. —Cicero. How great soever a genius may be, ... certain it is that he will never shine in his full lustre, nor shed the full influence he is capable of, unless to his own experience he adds that of other men and other ages. —Bolingbroke. It is for want of the little that human means must add to the wonderful capacity for improvement, born in man, that by far the greatest part of the intellect, innate in our race, perishes un

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CHAPTER VIII.

Nature, when she adds difficulties, adds brains. —Emerson. Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them. —Wendell Phillips. Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties. —Spurgeon. When a man looks through a tear in his own eye, that is a lens which opens reaches in the unknown, and reveals orbs no telescope could do. —Beecher. No man ever worked his way in a dead calm. —John Neal. "Kites rise against, not with, the wind." "What a fine profession

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CHAPTER IX.

It is the live coal that kindles others, not the dead. What made Demosthenes the greatest of all orators was that he appeared the most entirely possessed by the feelings he wished to inspire. The effect produced by Charles Fox, who by the exaggerations of party spirit, was often compared to Demosthenes, seems to have arisen wholly from this earnestness, which made up for the want of almost every grace, both of manner and style. —Anon. Twelve poor men taken out of boats and creeks, without any he

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CHAPTER X.

Let every one ascertain his special business and calling, and then stick to it. —Franklin. "He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither." He who wishes to fulfill his mission must be a man of one idea, that is, of one great overmastering purpose, overshadowing all his aims, and guiding and controlling his entire life. —Bate. The shortest way to do anything is to do only one thing at a time. —Cecil. The power of concentration is one of the most valuable of intellectual attainments. —Horace

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CHAPTER XI.

Note the sublime precision that leads the earth over a circuit of 500,000,000 miles back to the solstice at the appointed moment without the loss of one second—no, not the millionth part of a second—for ages and ages of which it traveled that imperial road. —Edward Everett. Despatch is the soul of business. —Chesterfield. Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time. —Horace Mann. By the street of by-and-by one

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CHAPTER XII.

Doing well depends upon doing completely. —Persian Proverb. He who does well will always have patrons enough. —Plautus. If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. —Emerson. I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone. —Gilpin. No two things differ more than Hurry and Dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a w

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CHAPTER XIII.

The smallest hair throws its shadow. —Goethe. He that despiseth small things shall fall little by little. —Ecclesiastes. It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life. —Smiles. "My rule of conduct has been that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," said Nicolas Poussin, the great French painter. When asked the reason why he had become so eminent in a land of famous artists he replied, "Beca

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CHAPTER XIV.

Quit yourselves like men. —1 Samuel iv. 9 Cowards have no luck. —Elizabeth Kulman. He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear. —Emerson. "Our enemies are before us," exclaimed the Spartans at Thermopylæ. "And we are before them," was the cool reply of Leonidas. "Deliver your arms," came the message from Xerxes. "Come and take them," was the answer Leonidas sent back. A Persian soldier said: "You will not be able to see the sun for flying javelins and arrows." "T

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CHAPTER XV.

In the moral world there is nothing impossible if we can bring a thorough will to do it. —W. Humboldt. It is firmness that makes the gods on our side. —Voltaire. Stand firm, don't flutter. —Franklin. People do not lack strength they lack will. —Victor Hugo. Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and make a seeming difficulty give way. —Jeremy Collier. When a firm, decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how the space clears around a man and leaves him roo

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CHAPTER XVI.

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. —Bible. The first and best of victories is for a man to conquer himself: to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful and vile. —Plato. The worst education which teaches self-denial is better than the best which teaches everything else and not that. —John Sterling. Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power. —Seneca. The energy which issues in growth, or assi

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CHAPTER XVII.

Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue, par excellence , of Man against Destiny, of the One against the World, and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore this is the courage of the Gospel; and its importance, in a social view—its importance to races and institutions—cannot be too earnestly inculcated. —Bulwer. Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance, and make a seeming impossibility give way. —Jeremy Collier. To bear is to conquer fate. —Campbell. T

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CHAPTER XVIII.

If you want to test a young man and ascertain whether nature made him for a king or a subject, give him a thousand dollars and see what he will do with it. If he is born to conquer and command, he will put it quietly away till he is ready to use it as opportunity offers. If he is born to serve, he will immediately begin to spend it in gratifying his ruling propensity. —Parton. Whatever be your talents, whatever be your prospects, never speculate away on a chance of a palace that which you may ne

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CHAPTER XIX.

Ambition is the spur that makes man struggle with destiny. It is heaven's own incentive to make purpose great and achievement greater. —Anonymous. "Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne and myself have founded empires," said Napo leon to Montholon at St. Helena; "but upon what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded his empire on love, and at this moment millions of men would die for Him. I die before my time and my body will be given back to worms. Such is the fa

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CHAPTER XX.

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 s

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CHAPTER XXI.

The best way to settle the quarrel between capital and labor is by allopathic doses of Peter-Cooperism. —Talmage. In the sublimest flights of the soul, rectitude is never surmounted, love is never outgrown. —Emerson. "One ruddy drop of manly blood the surging sea outweighs." He believed that he was born, not for himself, but for the whole world. —Lucan. Wherever man goes to dwell, his character goes with him. —African Proverb. "No, say what you have to say in her presence, too," said King Cleome

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CHAPTER XXII.

I have gout, asthma, and seven other maladies, but am otherwise very well. —Sidney Smith. The inborn geniality of some people amounts to genius. —Whipple. There is no real life but cheerful life. —Addison. Next to the virtue, the fun in this world is what we can least spare. —Agnes Strickland. Joy in one's work is the consummate tool. —Phillips Brooks. "He is as stiff as a poker," said a friend of a man who could never be coaxed or tempted to smile. "Stiff as a poker," exclaimed another, "why he

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CHAPTER XXIII.

Thoroughly to believe in one's own self, so one's self were thorough, were to do great things. —Tennyson. If there be a faith that can remove mountains, it is faith in one's own power. —Marie Ebner-Eschenbach. Let no one discourage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest, the greatest quality of true manliness. —Kossuth. It needs a divine man to exhibit anything divine. * * * Trust thyself; every breast vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place that divine Providence has found for you, the so

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CHAPTER XXIV.

Prefer knowledge to wealth; for the one is transitory, the other perpetual. —Socrates. If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. —Franklin. My early and invincible love of reading, I would not exchange for the treasures of India. —Gibbon. If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all. —Fénelon. When friends

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CHAPTER XXV.

Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. —Eph. iv. I. Abundance consists not alone in material possession, but in an uncovetous spirit. —Selden. Less coin, less care; to know how to dispense with wealth is to possess it. —Reynolds. Money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. —Franklin. There are treasures laid up in the heart, treasures of charity, piety, tempe

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PUSHING TO THE FRONT

Or , SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES, by Orison Swett Marden . A book of inspiration and help to the youth of America who long to be somebody and to do something in the world, many of whom, hedged in as it were by iron walls of circumstances feel that they have "no chance in life." → Passed through a dozen editions its first year . It is used in Boston and other public schools , and has been republished and heartily received in foreign countries. With 24 fine full-page portraits. Crown 8vo., $1.50. A

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SUCCESS

Author of "Pushing to the Front, or Success Under Difficulties;" "Architects of Fate," etc. The key note of the magazine will be to inspire, encourage and stimulate to higher purposes all who are anxious to add to their knowledge and culture, and to make the most of themselves and their opportunities. The following departments and subjects will be given especial attention: The Progress of the World, Self-Culture, Civics, "What Career?" Health, Science and Invention, Literature, Correspondence, E

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ARCHITECTS OF FATE

Or , STEPS TO SUCCESS AND POWER, by Orison Swett Marden . A book of inspiration to character-building, self-culture, to a full and rich manhood and womanhood, by most invigorating examples of noble achievement. It is characterized by the same remarkable qualities as its companion volume "Pushing to the Front." With 32 fine full-page portraits. Crown 8vo., 486 pages, $1.50. "Architects of Fate," like "Pushing to the Front," is a remarkable book, and of immense value in the training of youth. Ther

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