The church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have fought the Cosmic Urge. To do nothing and to be nothing was regarded as a virtue. The church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have fought the Cosmic Urge. To do nothing and to be nothing was regarded as a […]

All success consists in this: you are doing something for somebody–are benefiting humanity; and the feeling of success comes from the consciousness of this. Riding on the Grand Trunk Railway a few weeks ago, going from Suspension Bridge to Chicago, I saw a sight so trivial that it seems unworthy of mention. Yet for three […]

The person who reasons from a false premise is always funny–to other folks. The opinion prevails all through the truly rural districts that the big cities are for the most part given over to Confidence Men. And the strange part is that the opinion is correct. But it should not be assumed that all the […]

As the cities are all only two days from famine, so is man’s life constantly but a step from dissolution. Once on a day, I spoke at the Athenaeum, New Orleans, for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. When they had asked my fee I answered, “One Hundred Fifty Dollars.” The reply was, “We will pay […]

When power and beauty meet, the world would do well to take to its cyclone-cellar. The sole surviving daughter of the great King Ptolemy of Egypt, Cleopatra was seventeen years old when her father died. By his will the King made her joint heir to the throne with her brother Ptolemy, several years her junior. […]

Anybody can order, but to serve with grace, tact and effectiveness is a fine art. In San Francisco lived a lawyer–age, sixty–rich in money, rich in intellect, a business man with many interests. Now, this lawyer was a bachelor, and lived in apartments with his Chinese servant “Sam.” Sam and his master had been together […]

By exercise of its faculties the spirit grows, just as a muscle grows strong thru continued use. Expression is necessary. Life is expression, and repression is stagnation–death. Yet, there can be right and wrong expression. If a man permits his life to run riot and only the animal side of his nature is allowed to […]

An act is only a crystallized thought. John the Baptist, the strong, fine youth, came up out of the wilderness crying in the streets of Jerusalem, “Repent ye! Repent ye!” Salome heard the call and from her window looked with half- closed, catlike eyes upon the semi-naked, young fanatic. She smiled, did this idle creature […]

To be your brother’s keeper is beautiful if you do not cease to be his friend. One day last Winter in New York I attended a police court on a side street, just off lower Broadway. I was waiting to see my old friend Rosenfeld in the Equitable Life Building, but as his office didn’t […]

As the subject is somewhat complex, I will have to explain it to you. The first point is that there is not so very much difference in the intelligence of people after all. The great man is not so great as folks think, and the dull man is not quite so stupid as he seems. […]

I would write across the sky in letters of light this undisputed truth, proven by every annal of history, that the only way to help yourself is through loyalty to those who trust and employ you. It was in the Spring of Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six that the Sioux on the Dakota Reservation became restless, and […]

Success is in the blood. There are men whom fate can never keep down–they march forward in a jaunty manner, and take by divine right the best of everything that the earth affords. But their success is not attained by means of the Samuel Smiles-Connecticut policy. They do not lie in wait, nor scheme, nor […]

Every successful concern is the result of a One-Man Power. Cooeperation, technically, is an iridescent dream–things cooeperate because the man makes them. He cements them by his will. But find this Man, and get his confidence, and his weary eyes will look into yours and the cry of his heart shall echo in your ears. […]

Traveling to and fro over the land and up and down in it are men who manage street-fairs. Let it be known that a street-fair or Mardi Gras is never a spontaneous expression of the carnival spirit on the part of the townspeople. These festivals are a business–carefully planned, well advertised and carried out with […]

The question is often asked, “What becomes of all the Valedictorians and all the Class-Day Poets?” I can give information as to two parties for whom this inquiry is made–the Valedictorian of my class is now a most industrious and worthy floor-walker in Siegel, Cooper & Company’s store, and I was the Class-Day Poet. Both […]

An excellent and gentle man of my acquaintance has said, “When fifty-one per cent of the voters believe in cooeperation as opposed to competition, the Ideal Commonwealth will cease to be a theory and become a fact.” That men should work together for the good of all is very beautiful, and I believe the day […]

Did it ever strike you that it is a most absurd and semi-barbaric thingto set one day apart as “holy?” If you are a writer and a beautiful thought comes to you, you neverhesitate because it is Sunday, but you write it down. If you are a painter, and the picture appears before you, vivid […]

Abraham Lincoln’s letter to Hooker! If all the letters, messages and speeches of Lincoln were destroyed, except that one letter to Hooker, we still would have an excellent index to the heart of the Rail-Splitter. In this letter we see that Lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also behold the fact that he could […]

When I was a farmer lad I noticed that whenever we bought a new cow, and turned her into the pasture with the herd, there was a general inclination on the part of the rest to make the new cow think she had landed in the orthodox perdition. They would hook her away from the […]

There is known to me a prominent business house that by the very force of its directness and worth has incurred the enmity of many rivals. In fact, there is a very general conspiracy on hand to put the institution down and out. In talking with a young man employed by this house, he yawned […]