If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place. Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them, they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight. No young man starting in life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit, support him in every great effort, and make him what, unaided, he could never be. Friends of the right sort will help him more - to be happy and successful - than much money. No man is beaten until his hope is annihilated, his confidence gone. As long as a man faces life hopefully, confidently, triumphantly, he is not a failure; he is not beaten until he turns his back on life. No man fails who does his best. No employer today is independent of those about him. He cannot succeed alone, no matter how great his ability or capital. Business today is more than ever a question of cooperation. Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory. Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark. Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hallmark of excellence. | 
