Faith is an optimist because it sees the way out. Doubt is a pessimist, cannot see the way ahead and fears because not conscious of being able to cope with the uncertain.
Faith opens the door of ability and develops superiority.
The habit of expecting great things of ourselves calls out the best that is in us.
Faith is the divine messenger sent to guide man, blinded by doubt and sin.
What would be the probable success of an animal tamer who went into a cage with ferocious wild beasts for the first time full of fear, doubt, uncertainty? What if he said to himself, “I will try to conquer these wild animals, but I really do not believe I can do it. It is a pretty tough proposition for a human being to try to conquer a wild tiger from the jungles of Africa. There may be men who can do it, but I doubt very much whether I can.”
If he should face wild beasts with such an attitude of weakness, doubt, and fear, he would very soon be tom to pieces. Bold courage is all that would save him. He must conquer with his eye first, and there must be a lot of winning, gritty stuff back of the eye, for the slightest show of fear would probably be fatal, the least indication of cowardice might cost him his life.
In fact, a man cannot try with that determination which achieves unless he actually believes he is going to get what he is working for, or approximate to it.
How long will it take a youth to become a merchant who is always in doubt whether he will make much of a merchant anyway, and when he does not believe in his heart of hearts that he ever will be one? This is not the kind of mental attitude which makes anything worth while. The mind must lead; the pattern precedes the weaving of the web, the ideal must go ahead. We always face in the direction of our faith. It is what we believe we can do that we accomplish or tend to.
How long will it take a young man to make a fortune if he has not the slightest confidence that he will ever make money, if he starts out with the conviction that only a few can be rich, that most people are poor, and that he is probably one of the multitude?
How long would it take a boy to go through college who was always talking about the impossibility of his doing so, who was forever complaining that he had no chance, no money, nobody to help him, and that he never could do it without assistance?
How long would it take a youth out of work to get a good position if he should deny his ability to get one, and keep saying, “What is the use?”
I have known boys to resolve to become lawyers, physicians, or merchants with such a flimsy will, such a weak resolve, that they were daunted at the first difficulty. They were separated from their weak resolve before they were fairly started. It was the easiest thing in the world to turn them.
I have known other boys to decide upon their vocation with such vigor and virility that nothing could shake their decision, because it was a part of their very constitution.
If we analyze great achievements and the men who accomplish them, the most prominent quality in evidence is self-confidence. The man with absolute faith in his ability to do what he undertakes is the most likely to succeed, even when such confidence seems to outsiders audacious, if not foolhardy. It is not alone the subjective effect of this belief in themselves that enables such men to get results; it is also largely the effect of that self-faith on others. When a man feels a sense of mastery, of having risen to his dominion, he talks confidence, radiates victory, and overcomes doubts in others. Everybody believes he can do the thing he undertakes. The world believes in the conqueror, the man who carries victory in his very appearance.
We believe in people who impress us with their power, and they cannot do this without a strong self-faith. They cannot do it when their minds are full of doubts and fears. Some men carry conquest in their very presence; they win our confidence the first time we see them. We believe in their power because they radiate it.
In every kind of work and business we are dependent on the belief of others that we can make or carry out plans, can produce superior goods, can manage employees, can do any of the thousand things demanded by employers or by the public. Life is too short, there is not time enough, to allow minute investigation of another’s ability to achieve the thing he assumes to be able to do; therefore, the world accepts very largely a man’s own estimate of himself until he forfeits its confidence. A physician does not have to prove to each patient that he has followed certain courses and passed certain examinations. If a young man hangs out his law shingle, the world will take it for granted that he is fitted for his profession until he proves otherwise.
You will notice in a group of boys or young men who are friends or schoolmates, with similar ability and education, that one will step out boldly and advance rapidly, while the others are waiting for somebody to discover them. The world is too busy to hunt for merit. It takes it for granted that you can do what you claim you can, until you show your inability.
To acknowledge lack of ability, to give way to a temporary doubt, is to give failure so much advantage. We should never allow self-faith to waver for a moment, no matter how dark the way may seem. Nothing will destroy the confidence of others so quickly as a doubt in our own minds. Many people fail because they radiate their discouraged moods and project them into the minds of those about them.
If you are always putting a low rating on yourself, marking yourself down, you may be sure that others will not take the trouble to mark you up. They will not take pains to see if you have not rated yourself too low.
I never knew a man who had a small, belittling estimate of himself to do a great thing. We can never get more out of ourselves than we expect. If you expect large things from yourself, and demand them, if you hold the large mental attitude toward your work, you will get much bigger results than if you depreciate yourself and look only for little results.
If you think you are peculiar, that you are not like other people, that you are different and cannot achieve what they do,—if you harbor these impressions, you are not in a position to overcome what you regard as a handicap. The consciousness of possessing such qualities keeps you from being yourself.
People who are constantly depreciating themselves, effacing themselves, who believe that they are miserable worms of the dust and that they never will amount to anything of consequence, make a corresponding impression upon others, for they look as they feel.
Your own estimate of yourself, of your ability, your standing, the weight you carry, and of the figure you cut in the world, will be out-pictured in your appearance, in your manner.
If you feel very ordinary you will appear very ordinary. If you do not respect yourself you will show it in your face. If you feel poor, if you have a skim-milk opinion of yourself, you may be sure that nothing very rich will manifest itself in you. Whatever qualities you attribute to yourself, you will manifest in the impression you make upon others.
On the other hand, if you always contemplate the very qualities which you long to possess, they will gradually become yours, and you will express them in your face and manner. You must feel grand to look grand. There must be superiority in your thought before it can be expressed in your face and your bearing.
Confidence is the very basis of all achievement. There IS a tremendous power in the conviction that we can do a thing.
The man who has great faith in himself is relieved from a great many uncertainties as to whether he is in his right place, from doubts as to his ability, and from fears regarding his future.
In others words, the man who is faith-protected is released from a great many worries and anxieties which handicap those who are not. He has freedom of faculty and freedom of action, both of which are necessary for the greatest efficiency.
Freedom is essential to achievement. No one can do his greatest work when his mind is cramped with worry, anxiety, fear, or uncertainty, any more than he can do his best physical work with his body in a cramped position. Absolute freedom is imperative for the best brain work. Uncertainty and doubt are great enemies of that concentration which is the secret of all effectiveness.
Confidence has ever been the great foundation stone. It has performed miracles in every line of endeavor.
Who can ever estimate the marvelous influence of faith in the great achievements of men, that kind of faith which annihilates obstacles, which removes mountains of difficulties?
We are constantly reminded in the Bible that it was through faith that Abraham, Moses, and all the great characters were able to perform miracles and do such marvelous things. There is no other one thing that is emphasized so much throughout the Bible as the importance of faith. “According to thy faith be it unto thee” is reiterated throughout the Scriptures.
We are told that it is faith that doubles one’s power and multiplies one’s ability, and that without it we can do nothing. How quickly a strong man is stripped of his power the moment he loses confidence in himself or his ability!
Faith is the great connecting link between the objective and the subjective states. It is our faith that enters the Great Within of us, the holy of holy of our lives, and touches the divine. Faith opens the door of the true source of life, and it is through faith that we touch Infinite Power.
Our life is grand or ordinary, large or small, in proportion to the insight and strength of our faith.
Many people do not trust their faith, because they do not know what it is. They confuse it with fancy or imagination, but it is the voice of a Power Within in touch with Omnipotence. It is a spiritual faculty which does not guess or think or doubt, but which knows, for it sees the way out, which the other faculties cannot see. It is knowledge just as real as the knowledge which we gain through the senses.
Faith is a great elevator of character, and has a wonderful influence on the ideals. It lifts us to the heights and gives us glimpses of the promised land. It is “the light of truth and wisdom.”
It is criminal to destroy a child’s faith in himself by telling him that he will never amount to anything, that he is a nobody, that he cannot do what others do.
Parents and teachers little realize how extremely sensitive young minds are, and how powerfully influenced they are by anything which suggests their inferiority or their incompetence.
The suggestion of inferiority has caused more individual wretchedness, tragedies, and failures in life than anything else.
Dr. Luther H. Gulick, the physical director of the schools of New York City, says that there is a great army of boys and girls who drop out of our public schools because of their failure to pass examination, the reason for which has often been traced to impaired eyesight, defective hearing, bad teeth, or to the lack of proper nourishment. But the children do not appreciate these things and often do not know why they are inefficient, and they become morose, depressed, and humiliated because of their failure, and sometimes their minds become completely unbalanced.
Every year a number of them actually commit suicide.
Even the best race horse could not win a prize if its confidence were destroyed. This is one of the things the trainers are always careful to retain, for the animal’s confidence that he can win is a very great factor in victory.
It is faith that unlocks our power and enables us to use our ability. It has been the great miracle-worker of the ages. Whatever will increase your confidence in yourself increases your power.
Men who do great things in this world are always characterized by large faith in themselves, faith in their power, faith in the future of the race, while the men who do little things are characterized by their lack of faith, which makes them timid.
That one quality of holding persistently the faith in themselves, and never allowing anything to weaken the belief that somehow they would accomplish what they undertook, has been the underlying principle of all great achievers. The great majority of men and women who have given civilization a great uplift started poor, and for many dark years saw no hope of accomplishing their ambition; but they kept on working and believing that somehow a way would be opened. Think of what this attitude of hopefulness and faith has done for the world’s great inventors! How most of them plodded on through many years of dry, dreary drudgery before the light came! And the light probably would never have come but for their faith, hope, and persistent endeavor.
We are enjoying today thousands of blessings, comforts, and conveniences which have been bequeathed us by those resolute souls who were obliged often to turn a deaf ear to the pleadings of those they loved best, as they struggled on amid want and woe for many years without the sympathy or confidence of those nearest them.
Faith is the best substitute for genius; in fact, it is closely allied to genius.
Faith is the great leader in every achievement. It shows the path which leads the way to our possibilities. Faith is the faculty or instinct which knows, because it sees the possibilities within; it does not hesitate to urge us to undertake great things, because it sees reserves in us capable of accomplishing them.
No one has ever yet been able to make a satisfactory explanation of the philosophy of faith. What is that which will hold a man to his task, keep up his courage and hope under the most trying, heartrending conditions, which will enable him to endure with fortitude, even cheerfulness, all sorts of suffering, the pangs of poverty, and which will sustain and reassure him, after his last dollar has gone, when friends and even his family and those he loves best misunderstand him, or do not believe in him? What is it that sustains and enheartens him so that he endures what would kill him a hundred times if he were without it? The world stands in wonder before the heroes who apparently lose everything in the world but their faith in what they had set their hearts upon.
Faith always takes the first step forward. It is a soul sense, a spiritual foresight, which peers far beyond the physical eye’s vision, a courier which leads the way, opens the closed door, sees beyond the obstacles, and points to the path which the less spiritual faculties could not see.
It is a superb faith greater than any obstacle that has made the great discoveries, that has been the great inventor, the great engineer, the great achiever in every line of human endeavor.
There is little fear for the future of the young man who has a deep-seated faith in himself. Self-faith has ever been more than a match for difficulties. It has been the poor man’s friend, his best capital. Men with no assets but colossal faith in themselves have accomplished wonders, when capital without self-faith has failed.
If you believe in yourself, you will be much more likely to do the larger things you are capable of than if you were to hold the self-depreciatory, lack-of-confidence attitude.
If we could put a measuring line around a man’s faith, it would give a pretty good estimate of his possibilities. No man ever does a great thing with little faith. If his faith is weak, his efforts will be weak.
If you admit that you are full of flaws, that you are a blunderer, always unlucky, that you can never do things as other people do, how can you possibly expect other than that your acts will follow the convictions which you are constantly emphasizing?
If you go about with an apologetic air as though you would pick up anything that anybody else dropped and be glad to get it, but that you do not expect much of yourself; as though you do not believe that the grand things, the good things of the world are intended for you, you will pass for a very small man. And it is a fact that others estimate of us has a great deal to do with our place in life and what we achieve. We can not get away from it.
I know a man who creeps into a board meeting where he is a director as though he were a nobody, entirely unworthy of his position, and he wonders why he is a mere cipher on the board, why he carries so little weight with other members, why he is hardly ever deferred to.
He does not realize that he has lived with himself a good while and by this time ought to know himself better than others who see him only occasionally and naturally take him at his own rating. If he labels himself all over with the tags of inferiority, if he walks and talks and acts like a nobody and gives the impression that he does not think much of himself anyway, how can he expect others to do for him what he will not do for himself?
If we had a larger conception of our possibilities, a larger faith in ourselves, we should accomplish infinitely more. And if only we better understood our divinity we should have this larger faith. We are crippled by the old doctrine that man is by nature depraved.
There is no inferiority or depravity about the man that God made. The only inferiority in us is what we put into ourselves. What God made is perfect. The trouble is that most of us are but a burlesque of the man God patterned, intended. We think ourselves into smallness, into inferiority by thinking downward. We ought to think upward, if we would reach the heights where superiority dwells.
One of the most unfortunate phases of ancient theology is in the idea of the debasement of man, that he has fallen from his grand original estate. The truth is that he has always been advancing as a race, always improving, but his progress has been greatly hampered by this belittling idea. The man God made never fell. It is only the sin-made man that has fallen. It is only his inferior way of looking at himself, his criminal self-depreciation, that has crippled and deteriorated him.
The old theology taught us to belittle ourselves. There was a begging element in it. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate that man was to prostrate himself before his Maker like a sneak or a slave. There is nothing in such self-depreciation but demoralization. There is too much of the cringing, crawling spirit in our attitude; there is too much of the prostration, too much of the knee-idea, in our theology. Man was not made to bow in humiliation and shame, but to assert his divinity. He was made erect so that he could stand up and look anything and everything in the face, even his Maker, for he was made in His image.
If man is a prince, if he has royal blood in his veins, if he has inherited the divine moral attributes, he should claim his birthright boldly, manfully, with dignity and assurance.
The trouble with us is that we do not keep our good qualities sufficiently in sight; we do not think half well enough of ourselves. If we did, we would have a much better expression, would present a divine appearance.
It makes all the difference in the world to us whether we go through life as conquerors, whether we go about among men as though we believed we amounted to something, with a strong, vigorous, self-confident, victorious air, or whether we go about with an apologetic, self-effacing, get-out-of-other-people’s-way attitude.
Is there any reason why we should go through the world whining, tagging at somebody else’s heels trailing, imitating, copying somebody else, afraid to call our souls our own ? Hold up your head, and learn to think well of yourself; have a good opinion of yourself, and your ability to do what you undertake. If you do not, nobody else will.
Much of the poverty and lack of social position among people of the working class in today are due to their own sense of inferiority. Instead of standing up in an attitude of manliness and independence they take it for granted that they are inferior. If there is anything a level-headed, spirited employer despises it is a truckling, pandering, apologizing attitude in his employees. He likes to have those about him approach him on the equality of manhood. He instinctively despises those who bow and scrape. He can never respect the leave-it-all-to-you employee. He likes the one who stands up for his rights, and who makes him feel that he is a man and expects to be treated as a man.
Whether we realize it or not, we are never stronger than our faith, we never undertake anything greater than our self-confidence dictates.
The habit of exercising self-faith, of feeling conscious of possessing greater ability and power than we are using, has a tremendous extending, enlarging, unfolding influence upon our mental faculties. So undeveloped are our latent sources of power that our self-faith is rarely so great as the ability back of it would warrant.
As a rule a man’s greatest deficiency is that of self-faith.
The majority of people are many times weaker in confidence than any other faculty. A large percentage of those who are failures could have succeeded if this one quality had been properly trained and strengthened in their youth.
Take a timid, shy, sensitive, shrinking individual, and teach him to believe in himself, teach him that he has great possibilities, that he can make himself a man who will stand for something in his community. Train him in self-faith until this quality becomes strong and robust, and it will not only increase his courage, but strengthen all his other mental qualities as well.
The life processes are all the time reproducing the mental picture, the opinion we have of ourselves. No man can be greater than his estimate of himself at the moment. If a genius were convinced that he were a pygmy, he would only produce the results of a pygmy until he enlarged his estimate of himself. It does not matter how great or grand one’s general ability may be, his self-estimate will determine the results of his efforts. A one-talent man with an overmastering self-faith often accomplishes infinitely more than a ten-talent man who does not believe in himself.
I know of no greater self-protection from all that is low, ordinary, and inferior than the cultivation of a lofty, grand estimate of oneself and one’s possibilities. All the forces within you will then work together to help you realize your ideals, for the life always follows the aim; we always take the direction of the life purpose.
Hold up-building, ennobling, sublime pictures of yourself and your divine possibilities. If you persist in this constant struggle to measure up to higher and higher ideals, loftier and loftier standards, the life processes within you will help you to realize them.
It does not matter how strong most of our mental faculties are, if they are not led by a vigorous faith. Faith puts all the other faculties to work. Its influence upon the mental faculties is very bracing, while that of doubt and fear is demoralizing, deteriorating. There is nothing that will so brace a man up, will so buttress and reinforce his weaker faculties, as a robust self-faith, faith in himself, faith in everybody and in everything, faith that there is a great, magnificent force in civilization, in the affairs of man, a current which runs God ward; that there is a divinely beneficent purpose running through the universe.
Faith powerfully encourages all the other faculties, and courage is a tremendous force in one’s life. The greater our faith, the closer, the nearer, becomes our oneness with the universal life, universal power.
Doubt is a great paralyzer of efficiency. A man must believe that he can do a thing before he can do it. He can do little while he doubts. A man whose purpose is backed up by a superb faith and a lofty ambition, so that he finds neither comfort, rest, nor satisfaction until he is successful, will perform miracles, no matter what circumstances may conspire to hinder him.
The very intensity of your longing to do a certain thing is an additional proof that you have the ability to do it, and the constant affirmation that you can and will do it makes the achievement all the more certain. What you dream you can do, think you can do or believe you can do, you will do.
Faith is the bed rock upon which all other foundation stones in every great character rest. Thus the man who has an invincible faith in his mission, an unconquerable faith in himself and in his God, has power in the world.
We believe in a man with great faith, no matter whether he agrees with us or not, because faith represents force, stability, character. We believe in a man in proportion to his immovableness from principle, the fixity of his faith in his mission. The man who is loosely attached to his life work, who can be easily turned aside from his life purpose, is not much of a man.
Most successful men I have known had the habit of expecting things to turn out right. No matter how black or discouraging the outlook, they held tenaciously to their faith in the final outcome. This habit of holding an expectant attitude in some mysterious way unknown to us attracts the thing we long for, just as though our own were always seeking us when we were seeking it. Our faculties work under orders, and they tend to do or produce what is expected of them. If we expect a great deal, make a great demand of them, and insist on their helping us to carry out our ambition, they fall into line and proceed to help us. If, on the other hand, we do not have confidence enough to make a vigorous demand, a strenuous effort, if we waver or are in doubt, our faculties will lose their courage, and their effort will be perfunctory, will lack efficiency.
The mental faculties are very dependent upon the courage and confidence of their leader. They will give up all they have to the dominating will which governs them. But if their leader wavers, hesitates, they waver and hesitate also. Self-confidence is not a separate quality any more than courage is. It is a part of all the mental faculties, and when it is weak there is a corresponding lack of their efficiency, and vice versa.
I know of no other habit which would bring so much of value to our lives as that of always expecting that the best will happen to us instead of the worst, of taking it for granted that we are going to win out in whatever we undertake.
Many people queer their success at the very outset by expecting that they are going to fail, thinking that the chances are against them. In other words, their mental attitude is not favorable to the success which they are after. It sometimes even attracts failure. Success is achieved mentally first. If the mental attitude is one of doubt, the results will correspond. There must be persistent faith, continuous confidence, in order to win. A wavering, doubting mind brings wavering, doubting results.
There are many people who are habitually successful. Everything they touch seems to turn out well. They start out with the expectation of succeeding, with full, complete confidence that they are going to win, and they do.
One reason why so many fail or at best plod along in mediocrity is because they see so many obstacles and difficulties looming up so threateningly that they lose heart and are in a discouraged condition much of the time. This mental attitude is fatal to achievement, for it makes the mind negative, non-creative. It is confidence and hope that call out the faculties and multiply their creative, producing power.
The habit of dwelling on difficulties and magnifying them weakens the character and paralyzes the initiative in such a way as to hinder one from ever daring to undertake great things. The man who sees the obstacles more clearly than anything else is not the man to attempt or do any great thing. The man who does things is the man who sees the end and defies the obstacles.
If the Alps had looked so formidable to Napoleon as they did to his advisers and other people, he would never have crossed them in midwinter.
It is the man who persists in seeing his ideal, who ignores obstacles, absolutely refuses to see failure; who clings to his confidence in victory, success, that wins out.
Great things are done under the stress of an over-powering conviction of one’s ability to do what he undertakes. There is irresistible force in a powerful affirmative expressed with unflinching determination. One might as well have tried to move Gibraltar itself as to have attempted to turn Napoleon from his course or change his decision when he had given his ultimatum.
Faith was given to support us, to reassure us when we cannot see light ahead, or solve our problems. It is to the individual what the compass is to the mariner in the storms. He feels the same assurance when he cannot see anything ahead, because his compass points true to his destination.
It is infinitely easier to force a huge shell through the steel plates of a ship when projected with lightning speed from the cannon than to push it through slowly. So the world makes way for force and persistency, for the man who knows which way he is going and who projects himself with vigor. The things which are always tripping the hesitating, the doubtful, the weak man, get out of the way of the vigorous, positive, decided man. Difficulties are great or small in proportion as you are great or small. They loom up like mountains to one man and dwindle to mole hills to another. It is only the little man, the weak man who is afraid of hard things, who shrinks before obstacles, because he lacks the momentum to force them out of his way.
Do not be afraid of taking responsibilities. Make up your mind that you will assume any responsibility which comes to you along the line of your legitimate career and that you will bear it a little better than anybody else ever before has. There is no greater mistake in the world than that of postponing present responsibility thinking that we will be better prepared to assume it later. It is accepting these positions as they come to us that gives us the preparation; for we can do nothing of importance easily, effectively, until we have done it so many times that it becomes a habit. On the very resolution to do the thing which is best for you—no matter how disagreeable, no matter how humiliating, no matter how much you may suffer from sensitiveness or a feeling of unpreparedness—depends the development of your manhood.
Do not be afraid to demand great things of yourself. Powers which you never dreamed you possessed will leap to your assistance. “Trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
The habit of expecting great things of ourselves calls out the best in us. It tends to awaken forces which but for the greater demand, the higher call, would remain latent. You will find a stimulating effect in always considering yourself as lucky or fortunate. It is a great thing to form a habit of expecting good from every experience in life. Just think what it means to have everybody think you are lucky and expect that what you undertake will turn out well!
The reputation of always being successful in undertakings has been of great advantage to Theodore Roosevelt. He has the reputation of being a success organizer, and great things are expected of him. No matter what he goes into, or what he takes up, he seems to expect that he is going to win out. Thus, instead of getting a pulling back, hindering effect from people’s doubts and fears, he has the tonic effect of their optimistic expectancy. He inspires goodwill which is contagious, because he carries such a positive, vigorous assurance. He believes that he was made to do things, to achieve, and this self-faith has inspired the confidence of a whole nation and earned for him a splendid reputation which wins half his battles and practically insures at the very outset the success of whatever he undertakes.
Many people never seem to come to themselves until they have received a great humiliating defeat. This seems to touch a spring deep in their nature, setting free dynamic forces which enable them to do marvels. When a man who has got the right stuff in him has made a slip and feels that he is down and out, when he sees those that know him regarding him as a failure, calling him a “has been,” he makes a resolve to redeem himself from the disgrace, and every red blood corpuscle in him helps him to make good. There is something in the man whose very bearing and reputation seem to say, “When I meet my next Waterloo I shall be a Wellington, not a Napoleon.”
I’m a lunkhead, an’ I know it; ’tain’t no use to squirm an’ talk, I’m a gump an’ I’m a lunkhead, I’m a lummux, I’m a gawk. An’ I make this interduction so thet all you folks can see An’ understan’ the natur’ of the critter thet I be.
Wall, thet’s the kind er thing I be; but in our neighborhood Lived young Joe Craig, an’ young Jim Stump, an’ Hiram Underwood. We growed like com in the same hill, jest like four sep’rit stalks; For they wuz lunkheads, jest like me, an’ lummuxes an’ gawks.
Now, I knew I wuz a lunkhead; but them fellers didn’t know, Thought they wuz bigges’ punkins an’ the purtiest in the row. An’ I, luster laff an’ say, “Them lunkhead chaps will see W’en they go out into the wod’ w’at gawky things they be.”
Joe Craig, he wuz a lunkhead, but it didn’t get through his pate; I guess you’ve all heerd tell of him—he’s gov’nor of the State! Jim Stump, he blundered off to war—a most uncommon gump Didn’t know enough to know it—an’ he come home General Stump.
Then Hiram Underwood went off, the bigges’ gawk of all, We thought him hardly bright enough to share in Adam’s fall; But he tried the railroad biz’ness, an’ he allus grabbed his share,—Now this gawk who didn’t know it is a fifty millionaire.
An’ often out here hoe in’ I set down atween the stalks, Thinkin’ how we four together all were lummuxes an’ gawks, All were gumps, an’ all were lunkheads, only they didn’t know, yer see; An’ I ask, “If I hadn’t known it, where in nature would I be?”
For I stayed to home an’ rastled in the comfiel’, like a chump, Coz I knew I wuz a lunkhead, an’ a lummux, an’ a gump; But if only I hadn’t known it, like them other fellers there. Today I might be settin’ in the presidential chair.
We all are lunkheads—don’t git mad—an’ lummuxes an’ gawks; But us poor chaps who know we be—we walk in humble walks. So, I say to all good lunkheads, Keep yer own selves in the dark; don’t own or reckemize the fact, an’ you will make yer mark. —Sam Walter Foss.
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