Page 27 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

Those who are afraid of new ideas are doomed before they start. Never has there
been a time more favorable to pioneers than the present. True, there is no wild
and woolly west to be conquered, as in the days of the Covered Wagon; but there
is a vast business, financial, and industrial world to be remoulded and redirected
along new and better lines.

In planning to acquire your share of the riches, let no one influence you to scorn
the dreamer. To win the big stakes in this changed world, you must catch the
spirit of the great pioneers of the past, whose dreams have given to civilization all
that it has of value, the spirit which serves as the life-blood of our own country-
your opportunity and mine, to develop and market our talents.

Let us not forget, Columbus dreamed of an Unknown world, staked his life on the
existence of such a world, and discovered it!

Copernicus, the great astronomer, dreamed of a multiplicity of worlds, and re-
vealed them! No one denounced him as "impractical" after he had triumphed.
Instead, the world worshipped at his shrine, thus proving once more that "SUC-
CESS REQUIRES NO APOLOGIES, FAILURE PERMITS NO ALIBIS."

If the thing you wish to do is right, and you believe in it, go ahead and do it! Put
your dream across, and never mind what "they" say if you meet with temporary
defeat, for "they," perhaps, do not know that EVERY FAILURE BRINGS WITH
IT THE SEED OF AN EQUIVALENT SUCCESS.

Henry Ford, poor and uneducated, dreamed of a horseless carriage, went to work
with what tools he possessed, without waiting for opportunity to favor him, and
now evidence of his dream belts the entire earth. He has put more wheels into
operation than any man who ever lived, because he was not afraid to back his
dreams.

Thomas Edison dreamed of a lamp that could be operated by electricity, began
where he stood to put his dream into action, and despite more than ten thousand
failures, he stood by that dream until he made it a physical reality. Practical
dreamers DO NOT QUIT! Whelan dreamed of a chain of cigar stores, transformed

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NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH

his dream into action, and now the United Cigar Stores occupy the best corners
in America.

Lincoln dreamed of freedom for the black slaves, put his dream into action, and
barely missed living to see a united North and South translate his dream into
reality.