Russell H. Conwell

“ While Shakespeare had no heroes, all his women except Ophelia are heroines, even if Lady Macbeth, Regan, and Goneril are hideously wicked. In the moral world, women are what flowers and fruit are in the physical. "The soul's armor is never well set to the heart until woman's hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails." ”

“ But it is only the books that are to be chewed and digested that we can afford to peruse at the outset in our career; the literary pleasure—gardens—may come later in life.
Do your utmost to understand poetic expression, for the poets are the greatest teachers in the world as well as the greatest of all legislators. It is they who teach the great in conduct and the pure in thought. Without education that shall enable us to take them as our friends, life bears upon it the stamp of death. The great poets are now the only truth-tellers left to God. They are free, and they make their lovers free ”

“ Paradise was not meant for cowards; self-reliance and self-help is the manliness of the soul.
The solid foundations of all liberty rest upon individual character, and individual character is the only sure guaranty for social security and national progress. Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, no matter by what other name you call it. The gods are always on the side of the man who relies on himself and helps himself; men's arms are long enough to reach stars, if they will only stretch them. ”

“ Some women may be superficial in education and accomplishments, extravagant in tastes, conspicuous in apparel, something more than self-assured in bearing, devoted to trivialities, inclined to frequent public places. It is, nevertheless, not without cause that art has always shown the virtues in woman's dress, and that true literature teems with eloquent tributes and ideal pictures of true womanhood—from Homer's Andromache to Scott's Ellen Douglas, and farther. ”

“ The mere study of grammar has never yet made a correct speaker; the mere study of rhetoric has never yet made a correct and powerful writer; and the study of elocution cannot make an orator. Grammar, rhetoric, and elocution may teach him only the laws which govern speech, writing, oratory, and leave him ignorant of the best methods of execution. ”

“ Although Samuel Smiles's "Self-Help" is the first and perhaps the best of the many inspirational books that have been written of late years, it is by far the most serviceable of all to any one who wishes and intends to stand squarely on his own feet and to fight his own battle of life from start to finish. That book is attractive because it is anecdotal of life and character, and because of the interest that all men feel in those who have achieved great things through their own labors, their trials, and their struggles. ”

“ Men are more sincere with the women of most culture, although mere brain-women never please them so much as heart-women. Men feel that it is the exceptional woman who should have exceptional rights; but they scorn women whose soul has shrunk into mere intellect, and a godless woman is a supreme horror to them. When to her womanly attributes she adds the lady's attributes of veracity, delicate honor, deference, and refinement, she becomes a high school of politeness for all who know her. ”

“ There is no greater blessing in the world than poverty which is allied to self-reliance and the spirit of self-help. "Poverty is the northwind which lashes men into vikings." Lord Bacon says that men believe too great things of riches, and too little of indomitable perseverance.
Every nation that has a history has a long list of men who began life in the humblest stations, yet rose to high station in honor and service. ”

“ A man admires a woman who is worthy of admiration. As dignity is a man's quality, [Pg 126] loveliness is a woman's; her heart is love's favorite seat; women who are loyal to their womanhood can ever influence the gnarliest hearts. They go farther in love than men, but men go farther in friendship than women. Women mourn for the lost love, says Dr. Brinton, men mourn for the lost loved-one. A woman's love consoles; a man's friendship supports. What a real man most desires in a woman is womanhood. As every woman despises a womanish man, so every man despises a mannish woman. ”

“ A life is divine when duty is a joy. The best work we ever do is the work we get pleasure from doing, and the work we are likeliest to enjoy most is the work we are best fitted to do with our talent. There is nothing in the world except marriage that we should be slower in taking upon ourselves than our life-work; therefore, think much, read much, inquire much before you assume any life career. ”

“ Home is the true sphere for woman; her best work for humanity has always been done there, or has had its first impulse from within those four walls. It was home with all its duties that made the Roman matron Cornelia the type of the lofty woman of the world and the worthy mother. ”

“ The greatest writings and the greatest dramas of all time have more than compensated for all this indignity, and we have only to read deep into the great literature to be disillusioned of any vulgar estimations of womanhood, and to understand the beauty and power of soul of every woman who is true to the royalty of womanhood. ”

“ Napoleon claimed that it was the women of France who caused the loss at Waterloo, not its men.
"Man's intellect is for speculation and invention, and his energy is for just war and just conquest; woman's intellect is for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision; her energy is not for battle, but for rule." Apparently relying upon man's magnanimity not to resent her abdicating her home, woman's exigencies—and perhaps her ambitions—have forced her more and more during the past fifty years into man's domains of speculation and energy—perhaps into some war and some conquest. ”

“ Many a man has been the better for being too poor to attend school, like Franklin, Lincoln, Peter Cooper, and ten thousand other Americans. Their thirst for what books had to give them forced them to work harder and to deny themselves all the enjoyments that so vulgarize yet so charm the cheaper brood.
All that is won by sacrifice and downright hard work is priceless, and many noble men and women who have risen to high honor and station owe their place and power solely to this. ”

“ So long as our government depends upon the votes of the people, just so long must there be a stirring need of men and women orators to teach the principles of government and to keep open to the light of truth the consciences of the thousands and millions whose votes will decide the welfare or the misfortune of our nation. As the speaker must adapt himself and his message to all kinds of people, it is difficult to advise any one in certain terms how to accomplish this. ”

“ The art of music needs philosophic study, and it should be begun with a far better understanding of the many causes which contribute to its composition. The singing of birds is literally one of the most discordant expressions of sound. Indeed, the tones of the nightingale and the meadow-lark are only shrill whistles when they are considered with reference only to the tones of their voice, yet they furnish the ideal of some of the richest music to which the ear has ever listened, being one part of the delicate orchestra of nature. ”

“ A true poet is the most precious gift to a nation, for he feels keenest the glorious duty of serving truth; he cannot strive for despotism of any kind, for it is still the instinct of all great [Pg 162] spirits to be free. More than other authors, the poets make us self-forgetful, make life and the whole human race nobler in our eyes; all things are friendly and sacred to them, all days holy, all good men divine. ”

“ When Lincoln broke away in his celebrated Cooper Institute address, and pictured the word freedom written by the Lord across the skies in rainbow hues, the hearts of his audience stopped beating for the instant. It is foolhardy for any one to presume to speak with no preparation, for those who wish to give themselves to oratory should carefully study the great debaters, learn how they expressed themselves, and then accumulate important truths and facts concerning their subject. ”

“ Men who count for something do not wait for opportunities from any source—they help themselves to their opportunities. They can win who believe they can, and the strong-hearted always ultimately achieve success. A nation is worth just what the individuals of that nation are worth, and the highest philanthropy and patriotism does not wholly consist in aiding institutions and enacting laws—especially the laws which teach men to lean—but they rather consist in helping men to improve themselves through their own self-help. ”

“ The great men of science, literature, art, action—those apostles of great thoughts and lords of the great heart—belong to no special rank. They come from colleges, workshops, farms, from poor men's huts and rich men's mansions; but they all began with reliance upon themselves, and with an instinctive feeling that they must help themselves solely in climbing to the work or the station which they had assigned to themselves. ”

“ The best any government or any institution can do for men is to leave them as free as possible from either guidance or help, so that they may best develop and improve themselves. As it has been during the centuries, we put too much faith in government and other institutions, and too little in ourselves. ”

“ It is here where the orator becomes vehement, here where he shows all the ornament of his talk in appropriate figures of speech. The most effective orators are always those whose hearts are in strong sympathy with humanity, and whose sympathies are always aroused to plead for men. This is the condition that accounts for the eloquence—the power to arouse hearers—which characterizes men like Logan, the American Indian, and which characterizes many of the religious enthusiasts like Peter the Hermit, who have surprised the world and often moved them to mighty deeds. ”

“ But we must not forget that too much study as to nicety of expression may lose something of the mountainous effects of what we wish to state.
When an orator feels his subject, his soul overflows with a thrill indescribable, which is [Pg 147] known only to those who have felt it. Genius is lifted free for the moment to fly at will to the mountain heights, and finds supreme delight therein. Everything that is food for the mind is helpful to the orator, whether it come from school or work. ”

“ A true wife delights both sense and soul; with her, a man unfolds a mine of gold. Like a good wine, the happiest marriages take years to attain perfection, and Hamerton says that marriage is a long, slow intergrowth, like that of two trees closely planted in a forest. ”

“ That man's life is a success which has attained the end for which he started out—the greatest failure may sometimes be the hugest success through the discipline it has afforded. They tell us that men never fail who die in a worthy cause; that it is nobler to have failed in a noble cause than to have won in a low one; that it is not failure, but low aim, that is wicked. God sows the seed and starts us all out with about the same quantity and the same quality; whether the crop shall be abundant depends upon the environment in which we grow and the way we take care of the field. ”

“ Many a man laden with a wealth of college accomplishment has been an utter failure on the platform. Where reading-matter is as abundant and as cheap as it is in America, the poor boy at work upon the farm or in the factory, with no time but his evenings for study, may get the essentials of education, and by observing those who speak may give himself forms of oratorical expression that will enable him to outshine those with scholarship who have been led into fads. ”