EVERY NORMAL PERSON is capable of independence and self-reliance, yet comparatively few people ever develop their ability to stand alone. It is so much easier to lean, to trail, to follow somebody else, to let others do the thinking and the planning and the work. Do not think that, just because you are not a born leader, you are a born ‘leaner’. Because you have no great commanding qualities of leadership is no reason why you should not cultivate the little you have. We never know what resources or possibilities of strength are ours until we put our powers to the test. Many a man has proved himself a great leader who did not seem to be so naturally – who showed at first very little evidence of self-reliance. Leaders do not copy. They do not reflect the opinion of the majority. They think. They create. They make their own program and carry it out effectively. How few people stand for anything in particular! The majority of mankind are merely so many individuals in the census; they help make a little larger crowd; but how few men stand above or beyond their fellows and are self-sufficient! In later life we never quite forgive those who have allowed us to lean upon them, for we know that it has deprived us of our birthright. The greatest service a teacher can render a pupil is to train him to depend upon himself, to trust to his own powers. If the youth does not practice self-reliance, the man will be a weakling in adulthood. One of the greatest delusions that a human being could ever have is that his is permanently benefited by continued assistance from others. Power is the goal of every worthy ambition, and only weakness comes from imitation or dependence on others. Power is self-developed, self-generated. WE cannot increase the strength of our muscles by sitting in a gymnasium and letting another exercise for us. Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong, or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world."

Orison Swett Marden· self-improvement

Self-Improvement As An Investment - Orison Swett Marden

EVERY NORMAL PERSON is capable of independence and self-reliance, yet comparatively few people ever develop their ability to stand alone. It is so much easier to lean, to trail, to follow somebody else, to let others do the thinking and the planning and the work. Do not think that, just because you are not a born leader, you are a born ‘leaner’. Because you have no great commanding qualities of leadership is no reason why you should not cultivate the little you have. We never know what resources or possibilities of strength are ours until we put our powers to the test. Many a man has proved himself a great leader who did not seem to be so naturally – who showed at first very little evidence of self-reliance. Leaders do not copy. They do not reflect the opinion of the majority. They think. They create. They make their own program and carry it out effectively. How few people stand for anything in particular! The majority of mankind are merely so many individuals in the census; they help make a little larger crowd; but how few men stand above or beyond their fellows and are self-sufficient! In later life we never quite forgive those who have allowed us to lean upon them, for we know that it has deprived us of our birthright. The greatest service a teacher can render a pupil is to train him to depend upon himself, to trust to his own powers. If the youth does not practice self-reliance, the man will be a weakling in adulthood. One of the greatest delusions that a human being could ever have is that his is permanently benefited by continued assistance from others. Power is the goal of every worthy ambition, and only weakness comes from imitation or dependence on others. Power is self-developed, self-generated. WE cannot increase the strength of our muscles by sitting in a gymnasium and letting another exercise for us. Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong, or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world."

"A man will remain a ragpicker as long as he has only a ragpicker's
vision."
• Why go thru life exhibiting the traits of an underling? If you are a
real man, don't go around looking like a beggar,, talking like a
beggar, acting like a beggar.
• Only by thinking prosperity and abundance can you realize the
abundant, prosperous life.
• Fixing limitation upon ourselves is one of the cardinal sins of
mankind.
• Prosperity flows only through channels that are wide open to
receive it. Doubt, fear and lack of confidence close these channels.
• A pinched mind means a pinched, limited supply.
• Everything we get in life comes through the gateway of our thought.
If that is pinched, stingy, mean, what flows to us will correspond.

WHAT would you think of a prince, the heir to a kingdom of limitless wealth and
power, who should live in the condition of a pauper, who should go about the world
bemoaning his hard fate and telling people how poor he was, saying that he didn't
believe his father was going to leave him anything, and that he might as well make up
his mind to a life of poverty and limitations?

You would say, of course, that he must be insane, and that his hard conditions, his
poverty and limitations, were not actual, but imaginary; that they existed only in his
mind; that his father was ready to load him with good things, with all that his heart
desired, if he would only open his mind to the truth and live in the condition befitting a
prince, the son and heir of a great king.

Now, if you are living in pinching poverty, in a narrow, cramped, limited
environment in which there seems to be no hope, no outlook for better things; if you
are not getting what you want, though working hard for it, you are just as foolish as
the prince who, believing that he was poor, lived like a pauper in the midst of his
father's limitless wealth. Your limitations are in your mind, just as the prince's were in
his. You are the child of a Father who has created abundance, limitless wealth, for all
of His children, but your pinched, limited, poverty-stricken thought shuts you out from
all this abundance and keeps you in poverty.

This is an excerpt from "Prosperity" by Orison Swett Marden

Orison Swett Marden· Prosperity

How We Limit Our Money Supply

"A man will remain a ragpicker as long as he has only a ragpicker's
vision."
• Why go thru life exhibiting the traits of an underling? If you are a
real man, don't go around looking like a beggar,, talking like a
beggar, acting like a beggar.
• Only by thinking prosperity and abundance can you realize the
abundant, prosperous life.
• Fixing limitation upon ourselves is one of the cardinal sins of
mankind.
• Prosperity flows only through channels that are wide open to
receive it. Doubt, fear and lack of confidence close these channels.
• A pinched mind means a pinched, limited supply.
• Everything we get in life comes through the gateway of our thought.
If that is pinched, stingy, mean, what flows to us will correspond.

WHAT would you think of a prince, the heir to a kingdom of limitless wealth and
power, who should live in the condition of a pauper, who should go about the world
bemoaning his hard fate and telling people how poor he was, saying that he didn't
believe his father was going to leave him anything, and that he might as well make up
his mind to a life of poverty and limitations?

You would say, of course, that he must be insane, and that his hard conditions, his
poverty and limitations, were not actual, but imaginary; that they existed only in his
mind; that his father was ready to load him with good things, with all that his heart
desired, if he would only open his mind to the truth and live in the condition befitting a
prince, the son and heir of a great king.

Now, if you are living in pinching poverty, in a narrow, cramped, limited
environment in which there seems to be no hope, no outlook for better things; if you
are not getting what you want, though working hard for it, you are just as foolish as
the prince who, believing that he was poor, lived like a pauper in the midst of his
father's limitless wealth. Your limitations are in your mind, just as the prince's were in
his. You are the child of a Father who has created abundance, limitless wealth, for all
of His children, but your pinched, limited, poverty-stricken thought shuts you out from
all this abundance and keeps you in poverty.

This is an excerpt from "Prosperity" by Orison Swett Marden