The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.
It is within your power to see that all you have experienced, trials, errors, faults, deceptions, passions, your love and your hope, shall be merged wholly in your aim.
The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in company, cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion; all his information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation occasions for the introduction of what he has to say. The favorites of society are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, contended and contenting.
There's no committee that says, 'This is the type of person who can change the world - and you can't.' Realizing that anyone can do it is the first step. The next step is figuring out how you're going to do it.