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.
But another young man gets up over there and says, “I cannot take up the
mercantile business.” (While I am talking of trade it applies to every
occupation.) “Why can’t you go into the mercantile business?” “Because
I haven’t any capital.” Oh, the weak and dudish creature that can’t
see over its collar! It makes a person weak to see these little dudes
standing around the corners and saying, “Oh, if I had plenty of capital,
how rich I would get.” “Young man, do you think you are going to get
rich on capital?” “Certainly.” Well, I say, “Certainly not.” If your
mother has plenty of money, and she will set you up in business, you
will “set her up in business,” supplying you with capital.
The moment a young man or woman gets more money than he or she has grown
to by practical experience, that moment he has gotten a curse. It is
no help to a young man or woman to inherit money. It is no help to your
children to leave them money, but if you leave them education, if you
leave them Christian and noble character, if you leave them a wide
circle of friends, if you leave them an honorable name, it is far better
than that they should have money. It would be worse for them, worse for
the nation, that they should have any money at all. Oh, young man, if
you have inherited money, don’t regard it as a help. It will curse you
through your years, and deprive you of the very best things of
human life. There is no class of people to be pitied so much as the
inexperienced sons and daughters of the rich of our generation. I pity
the rich man’s son. He can never know the best things in life.
One of the best things in our life is when a young man has earned his
own living, and when he becomes engaged to some lovely young woman, and
makes up his mind to have a home of his own. Then with that same love
comes also that divine inspiration toward better things, and he begins
to save his money. He begins to leave off his bad habits and put money
in the bank. When he has a few hundred dollars he goes out in the
suburbs to look for a home. He goes to the savings-bank, perhaps, for
half of the value, and then goes for his wife, and when he takes his
bride over the threshold of that door for the first time he says in
words of eloquence my voice can never touch: “I have earned this home
myself. It is all mine, and I divide with thee.” That is the grandest
moment a human heart may ever know.
But a rich man’s son can never know that. He takes his bride into a
finer mansion, it may be, but he is obliged to go all the way through
it and say to his wife, “My mother gave me that, my mother gave me that,
and my mother gave me this,” until his wife wishes she had married his
mother. I pity the rich man’s son.
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