Page 205 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

dollars, alone?" Some will believe, and rightly so, that there are other forms of
riches more desirable than money.

Yes, there are riches which cannot be measured in terms of dollars, but there are
millions of people who will say, "Give me all the money I need, and I will find
everything else I want."

The major reason why I wrote this book on how to get money is the fact that the
world has but lately passed through an experience that left millions of men and
women paralyzed with the FEAR OF POVERTY. What this sort of fear does to one
was well described by Westbrook Pegler, in the New York World-Telegram, viz:

"Money is only clam shells or metal discs or scraps of paper, and there are treas-
ures of the heart and soul which money cannot buy, but most people, being broke,
are unable to keep this in mind and sustain their spirits. When a man is down and
out and on the street, unable to get any job at all, something happens to his spirit
which can be observed in the droop of his shoulders, the set of his hat, his walk
and his gaze. He cannot escape a feeling of inferiority among people with regular
employment, even though he knows they are definitely not his equals in charac-
ter, intelligence or ability.

"These people-even his friends-feel, on the other hand, a sense of superiority and
regard him, perhaps unconsciously, as a casualty. He may borrow for a time, but
not enough to carry on in his accustomed way, and he cannot continue to borrow
very long.

But borrowing in itself, when a man is borrowing merely to live, is a depressing
experience, and the money lacks the power of earned money to revive his spirits.
Of course, none of this applies to bums or habitual ne'er-do-wells, but only to
men of normal ambitions and self-respect.

"WOMEN CONCEAL DESPAIR.

"Women in the same predicament must be different. We somehow do not think of
women at all in considering the down-and-outers. They are scarce in the bread-
lines, they rarely are seen begging on the streets, and they are not recognizable
in crowds by the same plain signs which identify busted men. Of course, I do not
mean the shuffling hags of the city streets who are the opposite number of the

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confirmed male bums. I mean reasonably young, decent and intelligent women.