Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried.

Does competition trouble you?
work away; what is your competitor but a man?
_Conquer your place in the world_, for all things serve a brave soul.

Combat difficulty manfully; sustain misfortune bravely; endure poverty nobly; encounter disappointment courageously.
The influence of the brave man is a magnetism which creates an epidemic of noble zeal in all about him.

Every day sends to the grave obscure men, who have only remained in obscurity because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, if they could have been induced to begin, would in all probability have gone great lengths in the career of usefulness and fame.

"No great deed is done," says George Eliot, "by falterers who ask for certainty." A mouse that dwelt near the abode of a great magician was kept in such constant distress by its fear of a cat that the magician, taking pity on it, turned it into a cat itself.