for him, as
for you to hope to achieve anything significant in life while harboring
grave doubts and fears as to your ability.

The miracles of civilization have been performed by men and women of
great self-confidence, who had unwavering faith in their power to
accomplish the tasks they undertook. The race would have been centuries
behind what it is to-day had it not been for their grit, their
determination, their persistence in finding and making real the thing
they believed in and which the world often denounced as chimerical or
impossible.

There is no law by which you can achieve success in anything without
expecting it, demanding it, assuming it. There must be a strong, firm
self-faith first, or the thing will never come. There is no room for
chance in God's world of system and supreme order. Everything must have
not only a cause, but a sufficient cause--a cause as large as the result.
A stream can not rise higher than its source. A great success must have
a great source in expectation, in self-confidence, and in persistent
endeavor to attain it. No matter how great the ability, how large the
genius, or how splendid the education, the achievement will never rise
higher than the confidence. He can who thinks he can, and he can't who
thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.

It does not matter what other people think of you, of your plans, or of
your aims. No matter if they call you a visionary, a crank, or a
dreamer; you must believe in yourself. You forsake yourself when you
lose your confidence. Never allow anybody or any misfortune to shake
your belief in yourself. You may lose your property, your health, your
reputation, other people's confidence, even; but there is always hope for
you so long as you keep a firm faith in yourself. If you never lose
that, but keep pushing on, the world will, sooner or later, make way for
you.

A soldier once took a message to Napoleon in such great haste that the
horse he rode dropped dead before he delivered the paper. Napoleon
dictated his answer and, handing it to the messenger, ordered him to
mount his own horse and deliver it with all possible speed.

The messenger looked at the magnificent animal, with its superb
trappings, and said, "Nay, General, but this is too gorgeous, too
magnificent for a common soldier."

Napoleon said, "Nothing is too good or too magnificent for a French
soldier."

The world is full of people like this poor