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CHAPTER XII

GREAT MEN'S BODIES

"So far as my experience goes there is no kind of sermon so effective as the example of a great man. Here we see the thing done before us—actually done—a thing of which we were not even dreaming, and the voice speaks forth to us with a potency like the voice of many waters. 'Go thou and do likewise.'…

"Every man may profit by the example of truly great men, if he is bent on making the most of himself and his circumstances. It is altogether a delusion to measure the greatness of men by the greatness of the stage on which they act."—Professor Blackie, in Self Culture.

"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."

—Longfellow.

"Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others; and one, more important, which he gives himself."

"Difficulties and conflicts are the school of heroic virtues."

—Only by Struggle.

"The force of the understanding increases with the health of the body; when the body labors under disease, the mind is incapacitated for thinking."—Democritus.

"The nerve that never relaxes; the eye that never blanches; the thought that never wanders;—these are the masters of victory."—Burke.

"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."

—A Psalm of Life.

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