Clear Grit : Part 1

Architects of Fate: Steps to Success and Power
by Orison Swett Marden

(Page 10 of 20)

I should show the cinders of my spirits
Through the ashes of my chance. - Shakespeare.

What though ten thousand faint,
Desert, or yield, or in weak terror flee!
Heed not the panic of the multitude;
Yours be the captain's watchword, - Victory! - Horatius Bonar.

Better to stem with heart and hand
The roaring tide of life, than lie,
Unmindful, on its flowery strand,
Of God's occasions drifting by!
Better with naked nerve to hear
The needles of this goading air,
Than in the lap of sensual ease forego
The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. - Whittier.

Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me,
I have a soul that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more. - Dryden.

There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck!
A man who's not afraid to say his say,
Though a whole town's against him. Longfellow.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Goldsmith.

Attempt the end and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out. - Herrick.

The barriers are not yet erected which should say to aspiring talent, "Therefore far and no farther." - Beethoven.

"Friends and comrades," said Pizarro, as he turned toward the south, after tracing with his sword upon the sand a line from east to west, "on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south." So saying, he crossed the line and was followed by thirteen Spaniards in armor. therefore, on the little island of Gallo in the Pacific, when his men were clamoring to return to Panama, did Pizarro and his few volunteers resolve to stake their lives upon the success of a desperate crusade against the powerful empire of the Incas. At the time they had not even a vessel to transport them to the country they wished to conquer. Is it necessary to add that all difficulties yielded at last to such resolute determination?

"Stick to your aim: the mongrel's hold will slip,
But only crowbars loose the bull-dog's grip."

"The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blenches, the thought that never wanders, - these are the masters of victory."

"Perseverance is a Roman virtue,
That wins each godlike act, and plucks success
E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger."

At a time when abolitionists were dangerously unpopular, a crowd of brawny Cape Cod fishermen had made such riotous demonstrations that all the speakers announced, except Stephen Foster and Lucy Stone, had fled from an open-air platform. "You had better run, Stephen," said she, "they are coming." "But who will take care of you?" asked Foster. "This gentleman will take care of me," she replied, calmly laying her hand within the arm of a burly rioter with a club, who had just sprung upon the platform. "Wh - what did you say?" stammered the astonished rowdy, as he looked at the little woman; "yes, I'll take care of you, and no one should touch a hair of your head." With this he forced a way for her through the crowd, and, at her earnest request, placed her upon a stump and stood guard with his club while she delivered an address so effective that the audience offered no further violence, and even took up a collection of twenty dollars to repay Mr. Foster for the damage his clothes had received when the riot was at its height.

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer," said Harriet Beecher Stowe, "never give up then, for that's just the place and time that the tide will turn."

Charles Sumner said, "Three things are necessary: first, backbone; second, backbone; third, backbone."

While digging among the ruins of Pompeii, which was buried by the dust and ashes from an eruption of Vesuvius, A. D. 79, the workmen found the skeleton of a Roman soldier in the sentry-box at one of the city's gates. He might have found safety under sheltering rocks close by; but, in the face of certain death, he had remained at his post, a mute witness to the thorough discipline, the ceaseless vigilance and fidelity which made the Roman legionaries masters of the known world. Bulwer, describing the flight of a party amid the dust, and ashes, and streams of boiling water, and huge hurtling fragments of scoria, and gusty winds, and lurid lightning, continues: "The air was now still for a few minutes; the lamp from the gate streamed out far and clear; the fugitives hurried on. They gained the gate. They passed by the Roman sentry. The lightning flashed over his livid face and polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their awe! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood amidst the crashing elements; he had not received the permission to desert his station and escape."

The world admires the man who never flinches from unexpected difficulties, who calmly, patiently, and courageously grapples with his fate, who dies, if need be, at his post.

Copyright, 1895 by Orison Swett Marden.
All Rights Reserved.