Men who count for something do not wait for opportunities from any source - they help themselves to their opportunities. They can win who believe they can, and the strong-hearted always ultimately achieve success. A nation is worth just what the individuals of that nation are worth, and the highest philanthropy and patriotism does not wholly consist in aiding institutions and enacting laws - especially the laws which teach men to lean - but they rather consist in helping men to improve themselves through their own self-help. There is no aid comparable to the aid that is given a man to help himself - we may stand him upon his feet, but remaining upon them should be his own task. He is a magnificent somebody who steadfastly refuses to hang upon others; and nothing brings the blush sooner to the true-hearted man, than to feel that he has been unnecessarily helped to anything by men or by governments. There is no man who rides through life so well as the man who has learned to ride by being set upon the bare-backed horse called self-dependence.🏁

Men who count for something do not wait for opportunities from any source - they help themselves to their opportunities. They can win who believe they can, and the strong-hearted always ultimately achieve success. A nation is worth just what the individuals of that nation are worth, and the highest philanthropy and patriotism does not wholly consist in aiding institutions and enacting laws - especially the laws which teach men to lean - but they rather consist in helping men to improve themselves through their own self-help. There is no aid comparable to the aid that is given a man to help himself - we may stand him upon his feet, but remaining upon them should be his own task. He is a magnificent somebody who steadfastly refuses to hang upon others; and nothing brings the blush sooner to the true-hearted man, than to feel that he has been unnecessarily helped to anything by men or by governments. There is no man who rides through life so well as the man who has learned to ride by being set upon the bare-backed horse called self-dependence.🏁