This stirring manifesto shows how to discover everything you need to succeed— where you least expect it.So begins one of the most famous speeches of the twentieth century, a talk that educator and minister Russell H. Conwell delivered before literally thousands of audiences before his death in 1925. In its printed version Acres of Diamonds reached millions of readers around the world. Conwell's great manifesto imparts one extraordinary lesson: All the wealth you could ever dream of, search for, or yearn after—in whatever form you wish for—exists right beneath your own feet. It is a message of determination, unconventional thinking, and positive living that came to influence a generation of motivational literature.The Success Classics edition of Acres of Diamonds also features two rare bonus works: Praying for Money and The Story of "Acres of Diamonds" by journalist Robert Shackleton.
To live and let live is the principle of the gospel, and the principle
of every-day common sense. Oh, young man, hear me; live as you go along.
Do not wait until you have reached my years before you begin to enjoy
anything of this life. If I had the millions back, or fifty cents of it,
which I have tried to earn in these years, it would not do me anything
like the good that it does me now in this almost sacred presence
to-night. Oh, yes, I am paid over and over a hundredfold to-night for
dividing as I have tried to do in some measure as I went along through
the years. I ought not speak that way, it sounds egotistic, but I am old
enough now to be excused for that. I should have helped my fellow-men,
which I have tried to do, and every one should try to do, and get the
happiness of it. The man who goes home with the sense that he has stolen
a dollar that day, that he has robbed a man of what was his honest due,
is not going to sweet rest. He arises tired in the morning, and goes
with an unclean conscience to his work the next day. He is not a
successful man at all, although he may have laid up millions. But the
man who has gone through life dividing always with his fellow-men,
making and demanding his own rights and his own profits, and giving to
every other man his rights and profits, lives every day, and not only
that, but it is the royal road to great wealth. The history of the
thousands of millionaires shows that to be the case.
The man over there who said he could not make anything in a store in
Philadelphia has been carrying on his store on the wrong principle.
Suppose I go into your store to-morrow morning and ask, “Do you know
neighbor A, who lives one square away, at house No. 1240?” “Oh yes, I
have met him. He deals here at the corner store.” “Where did he come
from?” “I don’t know.” “How many does he have in his family?” “I don’t
know.” “What ticket does he vote?” “I don’t know.” “What church does
he go to?” “I don’t know, and don’t care. What are you asking all these
questions for?”
If you had a store in Philadelphia would you answer me like that? If so,
then you are conducting your business just as I carried on my father’s
business in Worthington, Massachusetts. You don’t know where your
neighbor came from when he moved to Philadelphia, and you don’t care. If
you had cared you would be a rich man now. If you had cared enough about
him to take an interest in his affairs, to find out what he needed,
you would have been rich. But you go through the world saying, “No
opportunity to get rich,” and there is the fault right at your own door.
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