Winning post

“ Not merely do you hide your tactics, but you do your best to make others believe that you are on the brink of ruin as soon as you are sure of winning the game. In short, you dissemble, do you not? You lie to win four or five louis d'or. What would you think of a player so generous as to proclaim that he held a hand full of trumps? ”

“ Any reasonable contests will please her and please me. But we don't want contests started if they are to turn into a fierce competition, anything to win and all hate to the winner. Let those enter each contest who please and let us all applaud the winner and praise those who did well, all of them, even if they do not win. I myself will provide suitable prizes for all the contests. ”

“ We have now to bestow the rewards which have been brilliantly won by the most successful competitors in the society’s lists. I say the most successful, because to-night we should particularly observe, I think, that there is success in all honest endeavour, and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. To strive at all involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition for these prizes involves, besides, in the vast majority of cases, competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse to the effort made. ”

“ You see the prizes for which, in the dance, whole crowds seem to be straining and yearning and even struggling, the prize of wealth, of even a little wealth, of a name printed in a newspaper, of a name printed in all newspapers, the prize of fame, of political position, of premiership. You see the wild political campaigns.
You see the places where the ambitious laze by the way, the baseball races where men are shouting themselves and others mad for an empty game, the halls of rag-time and trotting. ”

“ Gentlemen who have lost their money in the so-called winning modus swindles, or through following their own fancies, advice of puffing tipsters, newspaper selections, backing first favourites, jockeys’ mounts, or any other system, should give our infallible method a trial at the Epsom Meeting. ”

“ It is refreshing, in these times of jaded appetites and blasé indifference, to see real interest displayed in anything. These men were in earnest. Their flashing glances, short, sharp utterances and cries, their vivid gestures, the élan with which, having secured the call, one or other of them would dash down lead after lead, and the lightning pounce with which an opponent would produce a trump or winning card to check such a one's career, were positively exciting. ”

“ It was the great public contest of skill in the arena of the world in which I lived; and when I saw the victor with the crown on his head and the resplendent chain of shields upon his shoulders and breast, surrounded by a cheering multitude, it seemed to me something very great, to which I too some day might aspire. ”

“ Nothing of the kind. At a public table, a winner rises when he pleases. If I continue to sit here now, it is because that old fellow yonder has got a rouleau in his pocket which he cannot persuade himself to break. ”

“ You stand at the goal, a winner. Does your victory intoxicate, or does it sober you with the realization that you have but opened the way to limitless fields of bigger service ahead? Has success gone to your hands and made them tingle with eagerness to grasp more chances to succeed, or has it gone to your head? ”

“ When they look around and see how comparatively few of the multitudes of men and women in the world are winning they say to themselves, "Why should I think that I have a greater percentage of chance in my favor than others about me? ”

“ Make this forenoon sublime, this afternoon a psalm, This night a prayer, and time is conquered, and thy crown is won."
The Master's gracious plan is that we shall have the refreshment of doing big things. We are made for big things. They help us grow into the big size that belongs to us. World-winning is a great boon to the crowd compelled by the habit of life to tread a narrow path. ”

“ It is difficult for an author to WIN his public,—but WHEN won, the critics may applaud or deride as suits their humor, it makes no appreciable difference to his popularity. Now I consider my own present fame was won by chance, —a misconception that, as I know, had its ancient foundation in truth, but that, as far as everybody else is concerned, remains a misconception,—so that I estimate my success at its right value, or rather, let me say, at its proper worthlessness. ”

“ The professional sportsmen, which were such a curious feature of your day, we have nothing answering to, nor are the prizes for which our athletes contend money prizes, as with you. Our contests are always for glory only. ”

“ One hears of people winning, though I have never seen it happen. Then I fancy that the novelty has taken with a certain set. It is a thing at the moment to go up there and have the rather bizarre experience. ”

“ I trained with a good prospect for the light-weight championship, but I gave it up. I don't like to fight. I have got the sand all right, but I have got to get my mad up to fight with any spirit. Now, what I like in a public performance is to show some kind of merit, you know, of fine flavour. I mean something pleasing—that don't hurt nobody, nor leave nobody in the lurch, nor make much of one man to destroy another's prospects. Competitions ain't my lay at all. ”

“ For in a contest there is much labour needed—and after the contest victory falls to some, to others disgrace. Is the palm ever given or the crown granted before the course is finished? Paul writes well ”

“ Achievement proclaims ability to support, defend, bring credit and even fame to the object of future choice, and no good point is lost. Physical force and skill, and above all, victory and glory, make a hero and invest him with a romantic glamour, which, even though concealed by conventionality or etiquette, is profoundly felt and makes the winner more or less irresistible. ”

“ A poor poster is an abomination. Get the best that money will buy. The cost of posting is in the neighborhood of ten times the cost of the paper; hence a few cents more in the cost per poster is insignificant if it represents the difference between first-class and mediocre.
Have your poster attractive—in order to catch the eye and rivet the attention.
Have some element of reason and argument in your poster—in order to create the desire to buy.
Tell the truth in your advertising—not because honesty is the best policy, but because it is the only policy in successful business. ”

“ A young man who wins two events attracts special attention by his poetical head and his rapt air of mystic reverie, and goes back winking. Then the president commences his biennial address to an audience of students throbbing with excitement, afire with the after-glow of all that applause, anxious to canvass the awards, and dying to run out into the other rooms to look at the winning pictures, which have, in some instances, been dark horses which nobody remembers to have noticed. ”

“ Developing itself, like that game where the skilful winner advances gradually but surely, each piece protected by another through a series of moves, our policy had only become conspicuous by the last move which obtained its victory. ”

“ You must lay down your career at a moment of success, leaving behind you a good name amongst your colleagues and perhaps a great many regrets. But you have won the election now, you have made good, as they say, and so, for both our sakes, you must go. ”

“ The general who wins a battle is a hero for ever, though no better brains, no finer qualities may go to the winning of that battle than go to the making of a useful law, the winning of an election, and less than goes to a scientific discovery or the writing of a great book. He has, as well as his pay, his prestige, his popularity ”

“ If you feel yourself such an incarnation of genius that you think you know everything about the game, you'll find yourself left behind, and may say au revoir to your chances of election on "the first twelve." ”

“ This privilege of election attends every regrading, and when a man loses his grade he also risks having to exchange the sort of work he likes for some other less to his taste. The results of each regrading, giving the standing of every man in his industry, are gazetted in the public prints, and those who have won promotion since the last regrading receive the nation's thanks and are publicly invested with the badge of their new rank. ”

“ Those who early in the game get a favorable reputation are indeed fortunate while those who get in bad, so to speak, are generally strictly out of luck for reputations are like postage stamps—when once stuck on they are hard to take off. ”

“ The names of the competitors were given, with their several nationalities and schools of training, the trials in which they had been engaged, the prizes won, and the prizes now offered; under the latter head the sums of money were stated in illuminated letters, telling of the departure of the day when the simple chaplet of pine or laurel was fully enough for the victor, hungering for glory as something better than riches, and content with it. ”

“ His plan was to treat every contest seriously, to bring all his forces to the poll on every occasion—nothing kept men together, he used to say, like victory. It was the number of his opponent's minority which chiefly interested him ”

“ RIVALRY.—To compete for good is famous—such as little boys rivalling one another in a race up the Ladder of Learning—that is exercise of the mind. Here we have a picture of country boys exercising their strength—climbing up a pole covered with grease, for a prize of food for the body. The boy that wins the leg of mutton will be the hero of the fair, and be carried round the place on the shoulders of the men. ”

“ Whether it was that the gamblers, expert in the reading of a man's mood and intentions, sensed the fact that Orde might be led to plunge, or whether, more simply, they were using him as a capper to draw the crowd into their game, it would be difficult to say, but twice more they bungled the throw and permitted him to win. ”

“ After the excitement, and the expectation, and the suspense, and the eagerness, came the triumph and the prize—and the chosen queen of the field bestowed upon the champion whose feats were counted best, that reward, the value of which consisted more in the honour than the thing itself. ”

“ In their decision, moreover, is to be traced the influence of the leaders of crowds and the part played by the factors we have enumerated: affirmation, repetition, prestige, and contagion.
Let us examine by what methods electoral crowds are to be persuaded. It will be easy to deduce their psychology from the methods that are most successful.
It is of primary importance that the candidate should possess prestige. Personal prestige can only be replaced by that resulting from wealth. Talent and even genius are not elements of success of serious importance. ”

“ When one side is defeated the winner does not exult over his defeated opponents but attributes his victory to an accident; I have seen the defeated crew in a boat race applauding their winning opponents. It is a noble example for the defeated contestants to give credit to and to applaud the winner, an example which I hope will be followed by my countrymen.
As an ardent believer in the natural, healthy and compassionate life I was interested to find in the Encyclopaedia Britannica how frequently vegetarians have been winners in athletic sports. ”

“ For when the proud winner in the race went back to his little city, set among the hills, with his already withering wreath, all the people would come and hail him a victor and wave ribbons in the air. ”

“ Wherefore let us run in the straight course, the incorruptible contest. And let us resort to it in throngs and contend, that we may also be crowned. And if we cannot all be crowned, let us at least come near to the crown. ”

“ In the event that you should be wanted for some other post than the one you prefer, do you mean to say that you have an invincible repugnance to every other post, even though not inferior in dignity or importance? ”

“ It is among things strange that the world in the matter of proposing a candidate for public favor or celebrating a victory has made little or no advance from earliest ages. It has been immemorial custom when one had a candidate on his hands and desired to obtain for him the countenance of men, to give a dinner for those who were reckoned leaders of sentiment and, first filling them with meat and wine, make them stirring speeches to bring them to the candidate's support. ”

“ For instance, to prove that Dorieus was the victor in a contest at which the prize was a crown, it is enough to say that he won a victory at the Olympic games; there is no need to add that the prize at the Olympic games is a crown, for everybody knows it. ”

“ O, is that all, Win? we’ll go back to captain Jordan, to the pig-woman’s, Win, he’ll help us, or she, with a dripping-pan, or an old kettle, or something. The poor greasy soul loves you, Win; and after we’ll visit the Fair all over, Win, and see my puppet-play, Win; you know it’s a fine matter, Win. ”

“ The people are the judges: each candidate in rotation commences a story, such as his fertile genius at the moment prompts; and the more marvellous or improbable his story happens to be, so much the greater chance is there of his success.
After being amused in this manner for a considerable length of time, and awarding the prizes to the most deserving, the host of candidates, judges, and other attendants, adjourn to the inns, where the sports of the day very often end in a few splendid battles. ”

“ Educated in a better school—the Newspaper Office—for becoming officially dexterous, we could beat them at their own duties, and not one of them could accept a challenge to play the return match at those which we perform. ”