Orison Swett Marden

The whole world is looking for such a man. Although there are millions out of employment, yet it is almost impossible to find just the right man in…

Rousseau, in his celebrated essay on education, says; "According to the order of nature, men being equal, their common vocation is the profession…

As Emerson says, Talleyrand's question is ever the main one; not, is he rich? is he committed? is he well-meaning? has he this or that faculty? is he…

One great need for the world to-day is for men and women who are good animals. To endure the strain of our concentrated civilization, the coming…

It is a sad sight to see thousands of students graduated every year from our grand institutions whose object is to make stalwart, independent,…

The character sympathizes with and unconsciously takes on the nature of the body. A peevish, snarling, ailing man can not develop the vigor and…

As we stand upon the seashore while the tide is coming in, one wave reaches up the beach far higher than any previous one, then recedes, and for some…

Apelles hunted over Greece for many years, studying the fairest points of beautiful women, getting here an eye, there a forehead and there a nose,…

The first requisite of all education and discipline should be man-timber. Tough timber must come from well grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be…

If the youth should start out with the fixed determination that every statement he makes shall be the exact truth; that every promise he makes…

What constitutes a state? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;…

God give us men. A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands: Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom…

Poverty is very terrible, and sometimes kills the very soul within us, but it is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft,…

There can be no doubt that the captains of industry to-day, using that term in its broadest sense, are men who began life as poor boys.--SETH LOW.

Years afterwards when the children of the party had become men and women, some of them went to see a splendid house, filled with all kinds of…

The poor deaf boy with a drunken father, who was thought capable of nothing better than making shoes as a pauper, became one of the greatest Biblical…

Creon was a Greek slave, as a writer tells the story in Kate Field's "Washington," but he was also a slave of the Genius of Art. Beauty was his god,…

Then to her brother she said: "O Creon, go to the cellar beneath our house. It is dark, but I will furnish light and food. Continue your work; the…

About this time all Greece was invited to Athens to behold an exhibit of works of art. The display took place in the Agora. Pericles presided. At his…

The works of the great masters were there. But one group, far more beautiful than the rest,--a group that Apollo himself must have…

"Who is the sculptor of this group?" None could tell. Heralds repeated the question, but there was no answer. "A mystery, then! Can it be the work of…

As he spoke a youth with flowing hair, emaciated, but with black eyes that beamed with the flashing light of genius, rushed forward, and flinging…

The indignant crowd interrupted him and cried, "To the dungeon, to the dungeon with the slave." "As I live, no!" said Pericles, rising. "Behold…

The Athenians erected a statue to Aesop, who was born a slave, that men might know that the way to honor is open to all. In Greece, wealth and…

"I was born in poverty," said Vice-President Henry Wilson. "Want sat by my cradle. I know what it is to ask a mother for bread when she has none to…

Mr. Wilson determined never to lose an opportunity for self-culture or self-advancement. Few men knew so well the value of spare moments. _He…

"Don't go about the town any longer in that outlandish rig. Let me give you an order on the store. Dress up a little, Horace." Horace Greeley…

He found board over a saloon at two dollars and a half a week. His journey of six hundred miles had cost him but five dollars. For days Horace…

In ten years he was a partner in a small printing-office. He founded the "New Yorker," the best weekly paper in the United States, but it was not…

One of the first things to attract the attention on entering George W. Childs' private office in Philadelphia was this motto, which was the…

In spite of the fact that the "Ledger" was losing money every day, his friends could not dissuade him from buying it, and in 1864 the dreams of his…

At a banquet in Lyons, nearly a century and a half ago, a discussion arose in regard to the meaning of a painting representing some scene in the…

"In what school have you studied, Monsieur?" asked one of the guests, addressing the waiter with great respect. "I have studied in many schools,…

For eight years William Cobbett had followed the plow, when he ran away to London, copied law papers for eight or nine months, and then enlisted in…

But Cobbett made even his poverty and hard circumstances serve his all-absorbing passion for knowledge and success. "If I," said he, "under such…

Humphrey Davy had but a slender chance to acquire great scientific knowledge, yet he had true mettle in him, and he made even old pans, kettles,…

"Many a farmer's son," says Thurlow Weed, "has found the best opportunities for mental improvement in his intervals of leisure while tending…

"May I have a holiday to-morrow, father?" asked Theodore Parker one August afternoon. The poor Lexington millwright looked in surprise at his…

"Well done, my boy!" said the millwright, when his son came home late at night and told of his successful examination; "but, Theodore, I cannot…

"The proudest moment of my life," said Elihu Burritt, "was when I had first gained the full meaning of the first fifteen lines of Homer's Iliad."…

"Let me say in regard to your adverse worldly circumstances," says Dr. Talmage to young men, "that you are on a level now with those who are…

"No outfit, no capital to start with? Young man, go down to the library and get some books, and read of what wonderful mechanism God gave you in your…

A newsboy is not a very promising candidate for success or honors in any line of life. A young man can't set out in life with much less chance than…

Edison passed through one dramatic situation after another--always mastering it--until he attained at an early age the scientific throne of the world…

What nonsense for two uneducated and unknown youths who met in a cheap boarding-house in Boston to array themselves against an institution whose…

With William Lloyd Garrison, he started to prosecute his work more earnestly in Baltimore. The sight of the slave-pens along the principal streets;…

In the first issue of his paper, Garrison urged an immediate emancipation, and called down upon his head the wrath of the entire community. He was…

In Boston, with no money, friends, or influence, in a little upstairs room, Garrison started the "Liberator." Read the declaration of this poor young…

But this poor young man, eating, sleeping, and printing in this "obscure hole," had set the world to thinking, and must be suppressed. The…

Garrison and his coadjutors were denounced everywhere. A clergyman named Lovejoy was killed by a mob in Illinois for espousing the cause, while…

"There are thousands of homes in England at this moment," said Richard Cobden, "where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger. Now, when the…

John Bright himself was the son of a poor working man, and in those days the doors of the higher schools were closed to such as he; but the great…

He was appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Woolwich, and became the wonder of the age in science. Tyndall said of him, "He is the greatest…

Henry Clay, the "mill-boy of the slashes," was one of seven children of a widow too poor to send him to any but a common country school, where he was…

See Kepler struggling with poverty and hardship, his books burned in public by order of the state, his library locked up by the Jesuits, and…

"When I found that I was black," said Alexandre Dumas, "I resolved to live as if I were white, and so force men to look below my skin."

How slender seemed the chance of James Sharples, the celebrated blacksmith artist of England! He was very poor, but he often rose at three o'clock to…

What chance had Galileo to win renown in physics or astronomy, when his parents compelled him to go to a medical school? Yet while Venice slept, he…

George Stephenson was one of eight children whose parents were so poor that all lived in a single room. George had to watch cows for a neighbor,…

Without a charm of face or figure, Charlotte Cushman resolved to place herself in the front rank as an actress, even in such characters as Rosalind…