Self-confidence

“ Self-confidence is what makes success, whether it is in the social world or the business world. It was self-confidence that helped Edison with each new invention. It was self-confidence that enabled Madame Marie Curie, penniless and obscure, to discover radium, the greatest and most wonderful metal in the world. All achievement is founded on self-confidence—not of the aggressive sort, but of the quiet, calm, unassuming sort that is so easy to develop if one will only try.
Determine that you will no longer allow timidity and shyness to rule you. Assert yourself! ”

“ From this moment he felt a firm confidence in his own powers — self-confidence has always been the parent of great actions. ”

“ Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. ”

“ As little can it be questioned that such self-confidence is a guide eminently dangerous and deceitful. Safe as we may feel under its direction, our safety is imaginary. The folly of others in trusting to themselves we discern irresistibly. The same folly they perceive, with equal evidence, in us. Our true wisdom lies in willingly feeling, and cheerfully acknowledging, our dependence on God; and in committing ourselves with humble reliance to His care and direction.
With these observations I will now proceed to illustrate the truth of the doctrine. ”

“ The world is wide, and there is everywhere room for honesty of purpose and earnest endeavour. Had I failed in attaining my wishes from an overweening self-confidence,—had I found that the obstacles after all lay within myself—I should have bitterly despised myself, and, worst of all, I should have felt that you had just ground of complaint. ”

“ It seems to come into life early. I have seen a little tot, whom I could with no inconvenience have tucked under my arm, walking down the road, head up in the air, breathing out an aggressive self-confidence, and defiance of all around, worthy of one of the old-time kings. And I recognized that he had simply absorbed the atmosphere in which his four brief years had been lived.
This has come to be the inbred spirit of mankind. Everywhere this proud, self-assertive, self-sufficient, self-confident, self-aggressive spirit is found, in varying degree. ”

“ How this sublime confidence should tell on our characters, destroying all self-confidence, repressing all pride, calming all impatience, brightening all despondency, and ever stirring us anew to deeds worthy of the 'exceeding greatness of the power which worketh in us'—I can only suggest. ”

“ There is everything in flinging out a superb confidence in yourself, a firm belief that you are going to win. Expel all doubt and fear, all uneasiness, from your mind and approach every prospect with the expectation of success.
“Courage,” says Emerson, “comes from having done the thing before.” Your first success will give you the momentum that will push you on to the next. Every achievement adds to our self-confidence, the great leader of all our other faculties. If confidence does not go ahead, the other faculties refuse to go on. ”

“ I must also add--and it is extremely important--that if up to the present you have lacked confidence in yourself, I tell you that this self-distrust will disappear little by little and give place to self-confidence, based on the knowledge of this force of incalculable power which is in each one of us. It is absolutely necessary for every human being to have this confidence. ”

“ A great self-confidence has come over me and a tremendous desire and will to achieve high things, with a confidence that I shall, has taken possession of me. I exhibited at the Champs de Mars and the papers have spoken well and it seems as if I were having what they call a 'success' here. ”

“ You have Self-Conscience, for the Self is the "I" within you, not the petty personality, and you must have confidence in that "I." Retreat within yourself until you feel the presence of the "I," and then will you have a Self-Confidence that nothing can shake or disturb. ”

“ Were I asked to give a recipe for the formation of a good manner I should recommend an equal mixture of self-confidence and humility as the first essential, then a considerable desire to please, tempered by the self-respect which preserves from officiousness and that annoying air of “ingratiating” themselves that some men assume in society. ”

“ We find ourselves looking over his sagging shoulders toward the individual behind him who comes in with a swinging step and the confidence born of health and good spirits.
Self-confidence in youth makes for self-confidence in after years. This is far from meaning that one can be brazen and inclined towards freshness and get away with it. It merely means the marshalling of one's forces, the command of one's self and the ability to make others recognize that we are on the map because we belong there. ”

“ The courage, the ingenuity, and the self-confidence needed are certainly admirable. And then there is a cringing and almost contemptible littleness about honesty, which hardly allows it to assert itself. ”

“ I have known very timid, sensitive people who scarcely dared to say their souls were their own before others, to so cure their habit of self-effacement and so strengthen their weak self-confidence by constant audible affirmation of their own strength, that in a very few months they had largely overcome this weakness. ”

“ In proportion as self-love and self-confidence are weakened, and our will bowed to that of God, so will hindrances disappear, the internal troubles and contests which harassed the soul vanish, and it will be filled with peace and tranquillity. ”

“ The boy was not insensitive, he knew; but he had the facility and self-confidence that came of looking at fate not as a master but as an equal. ”

“ But no training had succeeded in eradicating a strong mind's instinct of self-confidence, and if up till now he had committed no rebellion, it was because his reason had been rather a voluntary and eager helper than a captive or slave to the tribunal he distinguished from it by the name of conscience. ”

“ Simply because you lack confidence in yourself. When I tell you that you are better, you feel better at once, don't you? Why? Because you have faith in me. Just believe in yourself and you will obtain the same result. ”

“ Rely upon the good name which is made by your own exertions, and know that better than the best friend you can have is unconquerable determination of spirit, united with decision of character. Seek such attainments as will enable you to confide in yourself, to rise equal to your emergencies. Strive to acquire an inward principle of self-support. Help yourself and heaven will help you, should be the motto of every man who would make himself useful in the world or carve his way to riches and honor. It is an old saying, "He who has lost confidence can lose nothing more." ”

“ Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to its ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their realization. ”

“ Nature gave him a resolute will, a keen and precociously active intellect, a vehement individuality; that is to say, a consciousness of his own powers, and a determination to make them recognised by his fellows. In some men, the passion to succeed is clogged by the fear of failure; in others, the sense of their greatness is self-sufficing and indisposes them to effort. But with him ambition spurred self-confidence, and self-confidence justified ambition. ”

“ When we come to the really hard part, the judging of human nature, the co-ordination of the heterogeneous human elements, our self-confidence denies the necessity for preconceived practical tests. Because he is our man, because he followed us from the sage brush or the mountains, he must be all right. ”

“ But its influence on the sentiments of mankind in general consists chiefly in this, that it brings power, courage, and self-confidence in man, by showing him that he and his whole fate depend solely upon himself, or by placing him on his own feet. ”

“ On the whole, this, within due bounds, is by no means a defect; self-confidence is a fine thing for begetting ability; but, as before stated, they are prone to overdo many good things. Some of them, doubtless, overdo the confidence in their own abilities. ”

“ To have and to inspire unalterable confidence, one must walk with the assurance of perfect sincerity, and in order to possess this assurance and sincerity, one must wish for the good of others more than one's own. ”

“ So, too, in the bearing of the man there was a hardy self-confidence, much too simple and unaffected for his worst enemy to call it self-conceit. It was the bearing of one who knew how to maintain personal dignity without seeming to care about it. Never servile to the great, never arrogant to the little ”

“ The great results, significant for our present purpose, which the human mind achieved at this stage of its development were two. Self-confidence was restored to human reason, and life on this planet was recognised as possessing a value independent of any hopes or fears connected with a life beyond the grave. ”

“ Develop in them self-confidence, and teach that, before embarking upon any undertaking, it should be submitted to the control of reason, thus avoiding acting impulsively, and, after having reasoned the matter out, one should form a decision by which one abides, unless, indeed, some fresh fact proves you may have been mistaken.
Teach them above all that every one must set out in life with a very definite idea that he will succeed, and that, under the influence of this idea he will inevitably succeed. ”

“ Cicero.
1470 SELF-CONFIDENCE. Men often lose opportunities by want of self-confidence. Doubts and fears in the minds of some rise up over every event, and they fear to attempt what most probably would be successful through their timorousness; while a courageous, active man, will, perhaps with half the ability, carry an enterprise to a prosperous termination. ”

“ Besides, he is rather self-confident about a good many things; I don't mean that he shall be about this. As soon as I see that his self-confidence is wavering a little and his sensitiveness is a little hurt—then I'll tell him. ”

“ A too great confidence in himself, a sense that everything was possible to the will that would make it so, laid occasionally upon him self-imposed burdens greater than might be borne by any one with safety. ”

“ So by showing confidence in them, by never ignoring them as individuals, by encouraging and commending good as well as correcting error, the leader develops the self-respect of his men as a sure basis for the self-confidence and strength of character they need in order to meet his requirements.
Courage, Fear and Self-Control.—In many fields of activity a leader is likely to be called upon to meet emergencies requiring a cool head and a stout heart. Some men shrink from assuming the responsibilities of leadership in these fields lest they lack the nerve and show fear when the test comes. ”

“ Developing such an interest, self-consciousness will diminish, self-confidence will grow. Gradually, less and less attention will be paid to the petty details [202] of daily existence that formerly gave so much concern. ”

“ Such confidence in one's own ability as we have been describing usually results in the acquiring of what is called an easy manner,—self-possession,—in short, poise, and it is the possession of such a bearing that gives us confidence in the scholarship and ability of the leaders in any type of activity. ”

“ This self-reliance is doubtless, however, merely the full confidence which has resulted from the habit of independent thought and action of a man of unusually strong, iron will, determination, and tenacity of purpose. Though his language often indicates this confidence in himself, it never degenerates into boasting. ”

“ Therefore, as might be expected of those men who err in matters of the greatest concern, we transform our natural confidence into boldness, desperateness, recklessness, shamelessness, while our natural caution and self-respect we transform into cowardice and abjectness, full of fears and perturbations. ”

“ When a man is true to self, to humanity, and to God, and so girds himself with the strength arising from confidence, he deserves the support, if not the admiration, of those with whom he is associated. ”

“ Of the moral qualities, courage and self-confidence must be combined with caution, and the whole elevated by honesty and truthfulness of nature. At this point the philosophical reader will perhaps demur, and inquire whether those clients who are in the wrong find any difficulty in obtaining the most talented defenders—for a con-si-der-ation. ”

“ That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future, which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to. ”

“ I wish that they should know from his example, that the most brilliant courage, the greatest firmness in action, and the most perfect self-possession in the moment of danger, are not only compatible with deep religious impressions, and personal piety; but that they never can be looked for with so much confidence, nor will ever be found so largely developed, as when combined with these as the habitual principles of the life. ”

“ But I have observed confidence in a man's self that he shall perform a thing, helps him forward better than any other quality about him—Well, hang it, in order to make this experiment, I will be as enterprising and confident as you. ”