Frank Crane

“ I have lived an average life. I have had the same kind of follies, fears, and fires my twenty-one-year-old reader has. I have failed often and bitterly. I have loved and hated, lost and won, done some good deeds and many bad ones. I have had some measure of success and I have made about every kind of mistake there is to make. In other words, I have lived a full, active, human life, and have got thus far safely along.
I am on the shady side of fifty. As people grow old they accumulate two kinds of spiritual supplies: one, a pile of doubts, questionings, and mysteries ”

“ Life is not a science, to be learned; it is an art, to be practised. Ability comes by doing. Wisdom comes not from others; it is a secretion of experience.
Life is not like a problem in arithmetic, to be solved by learning the rule ”

“ Any man of twenty-one has a better chance for happiness, moral stature, and earthly success, if married than if unmarried.
I married young, and poor as Job’s turkey. I have been in some hard places, seen poverty and trial, and I have had more than my share of success, but in not one instance, either of failure or triumph, would I have been better off single. My partner in this task of living has doubled every joy and halved every defeat. ”

“ Outward success may depend somewhat upon what is in you, but it depends more upon luck. It is a gambling game. And it is hardly worth a strong man’s while. Inward and real success, on the contrary, is not an affair of chance at all, but is as certain as any natural law. Any human being that will observe the laws of life as carefully as successful business men observe the laws of business will come to that inward poise and triumph which is life’s happiest crown, as certainly as the stars move in their courses.
I would, therefore, if I were twenty-one, study the art of life. ”

“ If any man will stick to this, make it his anchor in times of storm, his pole-star in nights of uncertainty, he will cast out of his life that which is life’s greatest enemy—Fear. He need not fear man nor woman, nor governments nor mischief-makers, nor the devil nor God. ”

“ I would have my body thoroughly inspected by intelligent scientists once a year. I do not believe in thinking too much about one’s health, but I believe in finding out the facts, and particularly the weaknesses, of one’s mechanism, before one proceeds to forget it. ”

“ If a philanthropist gave me a million dollars I would decline it. If a rich father or uncle left me a fortune, I would hand it over to the city treasury. All great wealth units come, directly or indirectly, from the people and should go to them. All inheritance should be limited to, say, $100,000. If Government would do that there would be no trouble with the wage system.
If I were twenty-one I would keep clean of endowed money. The happiest people I have known have been those whose bread and butter depended upon their daily exertion. ”

“ A man who is looking for ideal human beings to make up his circle of acquaintances would as well go at once and jump into the river.
The God of Things as They Ought to Be is a humbug. There is but one God, and He is the God of Things as They Are. ”

“ And in this connection I would recognize that repetition is better than effort. Mastery, perfection, the doing of difficult things with ease and precision, depend more upon doing things over and over than upon putting forth great effort. ”

“ It has saved more souls than penance and punishment, it has rescued more business enterprises than shrewdness, it has won more battles and more games, and altogether felicitously loosed more hard knots in the tangled skein of destiny than any other virtue. ”

“ No matter how pretty and charming a fool may be, and some of them are wonderfully winning, it does not pay to marry her. Someone has said that pretty women with no sense are like a certain cheap automobile: they are all right to run around with, but you don’t want to own one.
And 3. She should be cheerful. A sunny, brave, bright disposition is a wife’s best dowry.
As to money, or station in life, or cleverness, or good looks, they should not enter at all into the matter. If I could find a girl, healthy, sensible, and cheerful, and if I loved her, I’d marry her, if I were twenty-one. ”

“ By intellectual dishonesty I mean what is called expediency; that is, forming, or adhering to, an opinion, not because we are convinced of its truth, but because of the effect it will have. A mind should, at twenty-one, marry Truth, and “cleave only unto her, till death do them part, for better, for worse.” ”

“ It is good to know arithmetic and geography and bookkeeping and all practical matters, but it is better to know how to live, how to spend your day so that at the end of it you shall be content, how to spend your life so that you feel it has been worth while. ”

“ One, being a good sport, by which I mean the kind of a man that does not whine when he fails, but gets up smiling and tackles it again, the kind of man whose fund of cheer and courage does not depend upon success, but keeps brave and sweet even in failure. ”

“ But the trouble is that in human affairs as you multiply your numerator you unconsciously multiply your denominator at the same time, and you get nowhere. By the time your supply reaches two thousand dollars your wants have risen to twenty-five hundred dollars. ”

“ I would, if I were twenty-one, take up some daily system of exercise that would bring into play all the voluntary muscles of the body, and especially those which from my occupation tend to disuse. I would devote half an hour to an hour daily to this purpose.
Excess: I would take no stimulant of any kind whatsoever. Whatever whips the body up to excess destroys the efficiency of the organism. Hence I would not touch alcoholic drinks in any form. If one never begins with alcohol he can find much more physical pleasure and power without it. The day of alcohol is past, with intelligent people. ”

“ There is a great temptation to expatiate upon the former subjects, for negative and critical statements have a seductive appearance of depth and much more of a flavour of wisdom than clear and succinct declarations. ”

“ Many young people play the fool and marry the wrong person, but my observation has been that “there’s no fool like the old fool,” that the longer marriage is postponed the greater are the chances of mistake, and that those couples are the most successful in matrimony who begin in youth and grow old together. ”

“ By intellectual cowardice I mean all superstitions, premonitions, and other forms of mental paralysis or panic caused by what is vague. To heed signs, omens, cryptic sayings, and all talk of fate and luck, is nothing but mental dirt. ”

“ If I were a young artist, I would paint soap advertisements, if that were all opportunity offered, until I got ahead enough to indulge in the painting of madonnas and landscapes. If I were a young musician, I would rather play in a street band than not at all. ”

“ In most of the biggest cities of the United States, from New York and Chicago down, you will find people who, every night of their lives, watch for and read in their evening paper an editorial by Frank Crane. These editorials are syndicated in a chain of thirty-eight newspapers, which reach many millions of readers. The grip which Crane has on these readers is tremendous. The reason is that the man has plenty of sensible ideas, which he presents simply and forcibly so that people get hold of them. ”

“ It is that which marks the thoroughbred.
There is a something in the hundredth man that bespeaks a finer quality. It is unconquerableness, heroism, stick-to-it-iveness, or whatever you have a mind to call it. ”

“ I am familiar, to some extent, with most of the religions, cults, and creeds of mankind. There are certain points common to every decent religion, for in every kind of church you are taught to be honest, pure-minded, unselfish, reverent, brave, loyal, and the like. ”

“ In choosing a wife I would insist on three qualifications:
1. She should be healthy. It is all well enough to admire an invalid, respect and adore her, but a healthy, live man needs a healthy woman for his companion, if he would save himself a thousand ills. ”

“ So, let a man of twenty-one resolve, and keep his purpose, that, no matter what comes, no matter how mixed his theology may be, no matter what may be the rewards of wrong-doing, or the perils and losses of right-doing, he will do right ”

“ We have a way of attributing this to breeding, after the analogy of horses and dogs; but while there’s something in blood I doubt if it is a very trustworthy guaranty of excellence. So many vigorous parents have children that are morally spindling, and so many surprising samples of superiority come from common stock, that heredity is far from dependable. ”

“ The voyager entering a new country will listen with attention to the traveller who is just returning from its exploration; and the young warrior buckling on his armour may be benefited by the experiences of the old warrior who is laying his armour off. ”

“ In addition, I would drink plenty of water, and would take some form of exercise every day that would induce perspiration. Most of my sicknesses have come from self-poisoning, and I would make it my main care to eliminate the waste. ”