not so bad as the poverty thought_. _It is the
conviction that we are poor and must remain so that is fatal_. It is
the attitude of mind that is destructive, the facing toward poverty,
and feeling so reconciled to it that one does not turn about face and
struggle to get away from it with a determination which knows no
retreat.

If we can conquer _inward poverty_, we can soon conquer poverty of
outward things, for, when we change the mental attitude, the physical
changes to correspond.

Holding the poverty thought, keeps us in touch with poverty-stricken,
poverty-producing conditions; and the constant thinking of poverty,
talking poverty, living poverty, makes us mentally poor. This is the
worst kind of poverty.

We can not travel toward prosperity until the mental attitude faces
prosperity. As long as we look toward despair, we shall never arrive
at the harbor of delight.

The man who persists in holding his mental attitude toward poverty, or
who is always thinking of his hard luck and failure to get on, can by
no possibility go in the opposite direction, where the goal of
prosperity lies.

There are multitudes of poor people in this country who are _half
satisfied to remain in poverty_, and who have ceased to make a
desperate struggle to rise out of it. They may work hard, but they
have lost the hope, the expectation of getting an independence.

Many people keep themselves poor by fear of poverty, allowing
themselves to dwell upon the possibility of coming to want, of not
having enough to live upon, by allowing themselves to dwell upon
conditions of poverty.

When you make up your mind that you are done with poverty forever; that
you will have nothing more to do with it; that you are going to erase
every trace of it from your dress, your personal appearance, your
manner, your talk, your actions, your home; that you are going to show
the world your real mettle; that you are no longer going to pass for a
failure; that you have set your face persistently toward better
things--a competence, an independence--and that nothing on earth can
turn you from your resolution, you will be amazed to find what a
reenforcing power will come to you, what an increase of confidence,
reassurance, and self-respect.

Resolve with all the vigor you can muster that, since there are plenty
of good things in the world for everybody, you are going to have your
share, without injuring anybody else or keeping others back. It was
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