“The firstsign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and actgreat. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assuresus, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise.”

“Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcomeself-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before anaudience?"Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that somehorses feed near the track and never even pause to look up at thethundering cars, while just ahead at the next railroad crossing afarmer's wife will be nervously trying to quiet her scared horse asthe train goes by?How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars—graze him in aback-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines orautomobiles, or drive or pasture him where he would frequently seethe machines?Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness andfear: face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop shying. You can never attainfreedom from stage-fright by reading a treatise. A book may giveyou excellent suggestions on how best to conduct yourself in thewater, but sooner or later you must get wet, perhaps even strangleand be "half scared to death." There are a great many "wetless"bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever learns to swimin them. To plunge is the only way.”

“A blow that would kill a civilized man soon heals on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of life, the greater is the capacity for suffering.”

“It never hurts a fool to appear before anaudience, for his capacity is not a capacity for feeling.”

“If You Have A Lemon, Make A LemonadeThat is what a great educator does. But the fool does the exact opposite. If he findsthat life has handed him a lemon, he gives up and says: "I'm beaten. It is fate. I haven'tgot a chance." Then he proceeds to rail against the world and indulge in an orgy of selfpity.But when the wise man is handed a lemon, he says: "What lesson can I learn fromthis misfortune? How can I improve my situation? How can I turn this lemon into alemonade?”

“Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse, and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the shoeing process. One way to get air out of aglass is to pour in water. Be Absorbed by Your Subject”

“You are going to survive. And good things are going to start to happen again. And one day you are going to look back and this will not even be such a bad thing”