Build Self Confidence
MEMORY PASSAGES THAT BUILD CONFIDENCE
A great deal of talent is lost in the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men who have only remained in obscurity because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, if they could have been induced to begin, would in all probability have gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, that to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
It will not do to be perpetually calculating risks and adjusting nice chances; it did very well before the flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to see his success afterward; but at present a man waits, and doubts, and consults his brother and his particular friends, till one fine day he finds that he is sixty years of age; that he has lost so much in consulting his first cousins and particular friends that he has no more time to follow their advice.
–Sydney Smith.
All one’s life is a music if one touches the notes rightly and in time–but there must be no hurry.–Ruskin.
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, may hope to achieve it before life is done; but he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows a harvest of barren regrets.–George Meredith.
Character is more than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think. Goodness outshines genius, as the sun makes the electric light cast a shadow.–Emerson.
Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.–Anon.
Fail, yet rejoice, because no less the failure that makes thy distress may teach another full success.
It may be that in some great need thy life’s poor fragments are decreed to help build up a lofty deed.
Thy heart should throb in vast content, thus knowing that it was meant as chord in one great instrument;
That even the discord in thy soul may make completer music roll from out the great harmonious whole.–A. A. Proctor.
Resolve, resolve! and to be men aspire, exert that noblest privilege, alone here to mankind indulged; control desire; let God-like reason, from her sovereign throne, speak the commanding word: “I will,” and it is done.–Thompson.
Let your courage be as keen, but, at the same time, as polished, as your sword.–Sheridan.
O friends, be men, and let your hearts be strong, and let no warrior in the heat of fight do what may bring him shame in others’ eyes; for more of those who shrink from shame are safe than fall in battle, while with those who flee is neither glory nor reprieve from death.–Homer.
True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.–La Bochefoucauld.
All languages and literatures are full of general observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct one’s self in it; observations which everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or hears with acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which most people first truly learn the meaning, when experience, generally of a painful kind, has made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting under some unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person call to mind some proverb or common saying, familiar to him all his life, the meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now, would have saved him from the calamity.–John Stuart Mill.
Self-consciousness is one of the greatest hindrances to the best manner. Do not imagine that every one is looking at you. Do not try to be some one else, but be simply and naturally yourself; second, do not be in a hurry. “Whoever,” says Lord Chesterfield, “is in a hurry shows that the thing that he is about is too big for him.” To be courteous does not take much time, but it takes a little. He who would be courteous must not be in such haste that he can not be sympathetic, nor so absorbed that he can not be considerate of others.
–Lyman Abbott.
As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two-o ‘clock-in-the-morning courage. I mean, unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision.–Napoleon.
For they can conquer who believe they can–Dryden.
Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial.–Milton.
Under what shining colors does Demosthenes represent Philip; where the orator apologizes for his own administration, and justifies that pertinacious love of liberty, with which he had inspired the Athenians. ‘’ I beheld Philip,'’ says he,'’ he with whom was your contest, resolutely, while in pursuit of empire and dominion, exposing himself to every wound; his eye gored, his neck wrested, his arm, his thigh pierced, whatever part of his body fortune should seize on, that cheerfully relinquishing; provided that, with what remained, he might live in honor and renown. And shall it be said that he, born in Pella, a place heretofore mean and ignoble, should be inspired with so high an ambition and thirst of fame: while you, Athenians,” etc. These praises excite the most lively admiration; but the views presented by the orator carry us not, we see, beyond the hero himself, nor ever regard the future advantageous consequences of his valor.–Hume.
A decent boldness ever meets with friends.–Homer.
Courage is the armed sentinel that guards liberty, innocence and right.–Anon.
Hardly less than mental ability are bodily health and vigor necessary to success. In the learned professions, especially, great constitutional strength and power of endurance are absolutely indispensable. The demand on the vitality of a successful clergyman, lawyer, doctor, architect, or engineer, is continuous and exhausting. Talents alone, however fine, will not insure success. The ax may be sharp, and may be “driven home” with the utmost force; but the power of dealing reiterated and prolonged blows is equally needful. In other words, the mind may be keen, carefully cultured, and full of knowledge and resources; but, to achieve great results it must be capable of sustained energy–of intense and long-continued labor.–William Mathews.
If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon our immortal minds, if we imbue them with principles– with the just fear of God and our fellow man–we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten to all eternity.–Daniel Webster.
Before putting yourself in peril, it is necessary to foresee and fear it; but when one is there, nothing remains but to despise it.–Fenelon.
In ordinary life a man who is unwatchful, wavering, unmanly, and weak, achieves nothing, gains neither respect nor confidence, and, if he does not become an absolute wreck, is still as nothing but a piece of driftwood floating aimlessly down the stream of life, and carried whithersoever chance currents may direct its course. Such a life accomplishes nothing for its possessor, and no man is helped or bettered by it. It may not be marked—probably it will not be–by any great crime or wickedness, but its very barrenness and uselessness are crimes, and it simply cumbers the earth until its end is reached. Dangers and temptations not watched against, and therefore carelessly yielded to, must leave blots and defects, to say no more, that long years of sorrow and effort may not wholly remove and cure. Opportunities suffered, through lack of watchfulness, to pass by unheeded and unused, are not likely to occur again.–Rowland Williams.
Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend to mean devices for a sordid end. Courage–an independent spark from heaven’s bright throne, by which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone, great in itself, not praises of the crowd, above all vice, it stoops not to be proud. Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above, by which those great in war are great in love. The spring of all brave acts is seated here, as falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.–Farquhar.
Violence is transient. Hate, wrath, vengeance, are all forms of fear, and do not endure. Silent, persistent effort will dissipate them all. Be strong.–Elbert Hubbard.
He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the only true lords and kings of the earth–they, and they only!–Buskin.
True worth is in being, not seeming–In doing each day that goes by Some little good, not in the dreaming Of great things to do by and by. For whatever men say in blindness, And spite of the fancies of youth, There’s nothing so kingly as kindness, And nothing so royal as truth.–Alice Cary.
Nay, never falter; no great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty. No good is certain, but the stedfast mind, the undivided will to see the good: ‘Tis that compels the elements, and wrings a human music from the indifferent air. The greatest gift the hero leaves his race is to have been a hero. Say we fail! We feel the high tradition of the world and leave our spirit in our children’s breasts.–George Eliot.
No man ought to be convinced by anything short of assiduous and long-continued labors, issuing in absolute failure, that he is not meant to do much for the honor of God and the good of mankind.—Thomas Fowell Buxton.
The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful and hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on their faces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life likemen, facing rough and smooth alike as it came.—Charles Kingsley.
Whatever you want, if you wish for it long, with constant yearning and ceaseless desire;
If your wish soars upward on wings so strong that they never grow languid, never tire, why, over the storm clouds and out of the dark it will come flying some day to you, as the dove with the olive-branch flew to the ark, and the wish you’ve been dreaming, it will come true.–Anon.
Life should be full of earnest work, our hearts undashed by fortune’s frown; let perseverance conquer fate, and merit seize the victor’s crown; the battle is not to the strong, the race not always to the fleet, and he who seeks to pluck the stars will lose the jewels at his feet.–Phoebe Cary.
Heart, take courage! What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.–Henry Ward Beecher.
He who ascends to the mountain tops shall find the loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; he who surpasses or subdues mankind must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow. And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, bound him are icy rocks, and loudly blow contending tempests on his naked head; and thus reward the toils which to those summits led.–Byron.
You conquer fate by thought. If you think the fatal thought of men and institutions, you need never pull the trigger. The consequences of thinking inevitably follow.–Carlyle.
A generous prayer is never presented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation.–Robert Louis Stevenson.
The boy’s bright dream is all before; the man’s romance lies far behind. Had we the present and no more, fate were unkind. But, brother, toiling in the night, still count yourself not all unblessed, if in the east there gleams a light, or in the west.–Anon.
What men most covet, wealth, distinction, power, are baubles nothing worth; they only serve to rouse us up, as children at the school are roused by exertion; our reward is in the race we run, not in the prize. Those few, to whom is given what they ne’er earned, having by favor or inheritance the dangerous gifts placed in their hands, know not, nor ever can, the generous pride that glows in him who on himself relies, entering the lists of life. He speeds beyond them all, and foremost in the race succeeds. His joy is not that he has got his crown, but that the power to win the crown is his.–Samuel Rogers.
Lord, for to-morrow and its needs, I do not pray; keep me from stain of sin, just for today. Let me both diligently work and daily pray; let me be kind in word and deed just for today. Let me be slow to do my will—prompt to obey; Help me to sacrifice myself just for today. Let me no wrong or idle word unthinking say; set thou a seal upon my lips just for today. So for to-morrow and its needs I do not pray; but keep me, guide me, hold me, Lord, just for today.— WILBERFORCE.
The time will come when every human being will have unbounded faith and will live the life triumphant. Then there will be no poverty in the world, no failures, and the discords of life will all vanish.–Marden.
The utility of courage, both to the public and to the person possessed of it, is an obvious foundation of merit. But to any one who duly considers the matter, it will appear that this quality has a peculiar luster, which it derives wholly from itself, and from that noble elevation inseparable from it. Its figure, drawn by painters and by poets, displays, in each feature, a sublimity and daring confidence, which catches the eye, engages the affections, and diffuses, by sympathy, a like sublimity of sentiment over every spectator.–Hume.
Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.–Dickens.
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.–Bovee.
The thing we long for, that we are, for one transcendent moment.–Lowell.
True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a brutal bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene, pleasant, and free.–Shaftesbury.
Our strength is measured by our plastic power. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another villas; bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks until the architect makes them something else. Thus it is that in the same family, in the same circumstances, one man rears a stately edifice, while his brother, vacillating and incompetent, lives forever amid ruins; the block of granite, which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the resolute.–Lewes.
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals.–Shakespeare.
Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause.–Plutarch.
Habit at first is but a silken thread, fine as the light-winged gossamers that sway In the warm sunbeams of a summer’s day; a shallow streamlet, rippling o ‘er its bed; a tiny sapling, ere its roots are spread; a yet unhardened thorn upon the spray; a lion’s whelp that hath not scented prey; O little smiling child obedient led. Beware! That thread may bind thee as a chain that streamlet gather to a fatal sea; that sapling spread into a gnarled tree; that thorn, grown hard, may wound and give thee pain; that playful whelp his murderous fangs reveal; that child, a giant, crush thee ‘neath his heel.–Anon.
We may not kindle when we will the fire that in the heart abides; the spirit bloweth, and is still, in mystery the soul abides; but tasks in hours of insight willed, in hours of gloom can be fulfilled.–Sir Edwin Arnold.
Every man has experienced how feelings which end in themselves and do not express themselves in action, leave the heart debilitated. We get feeble and sickly in character when we feel keenly, and can not do the thing we feel.–Robertson.
Be firm; one constant element of luck is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck. Stick to your aim: the mongrel’s hold will slip, but only crowbars loose the bulldog’s grip;
Small though he looks, the jaw that never yields drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields!–Holmes.
How much grows everywhere if we do but wait! Not a difficulty but can transfigure itself into a triumph; not even a deformity but, if our own soul have imprinted worth on it, will grow dear to us.–Carlyle.
For every spirit as it is most pure, and hath in it the more of heavenly light, so it the fairer body doth procure to habit in, and it more fairly dight with cheerful grace and amiable sight; for of the soul the body form doth take; for soul is form, and doth the body make.
–Spenser.
We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily–neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a will, and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all.–Buskin.
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.
Give us men! Men–from every rank, fresh and free and frank; men of thought and reading, men of light and leading, men of loyal breeding, the nation’s welfare speeding: men of faith and not of fiction, men of lofty aim in action; give us men! I say again– again–give us men! Strong and stalwart ones; men whom hope inspires, men whom purest honor fires, men who trample self beneath them, men who make their country wreath them as her noble sons, worthy of their sires; men who never shame their mothers, men who never fail their brothers, true, however false are others: give us men–I say again, give us men! Give us men! Men who, when the tempest gathers, grasp the standard of their fathers in the thickest fight: men who strike for home and altar (Let the coward cringe and falter), God defend the right! True as truth though lorn and lonely, tender, as the brave are only; men who tread where saints have trod, men for country–home–and God: give us men! I say again–again–give us men!–Bishop of Exeter.
Fear makes man a slave to others. This is the tyrant’s chain. Anxiety is a form of cowardice embittering life.—William Elleey Chaining.
A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest confidence in its lowest estate.–Sidney.
Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it.
–Richter.