Russell H. Conwell, founder of the Institutional church in America : $b the work and the manBurr, Agnes Rush
Religion
Russell H. Conwell, founder of the Institutional church in America : $b the work and the man
Burr, Agnes Rush
Conwell, Russell H., 1843-1925; Minneapolis (Minn.) -- Biography
I asked a class in school once who were the great inventors, and a
little girl popped up and said, "Columbus." Well, now, she was not so
far wrong. Columbus bought a farm and he carried on that farm just as
I carried on my father's farm. He took a hoe and went out and sat down
on a rock. But Columbus, as he sat upon that shore and looked out upon
the ocean, noticed that the ships, as they sailed away, sank deeper
into the sea the farther they went. And since that time some other
"Spanish ships" have sunk into the sea. But as Columbus noticed that
the tops of the masts dropped down out of sight, he said: "That is the
way it is with this hoe handle; if you go around this hoe handle, the
farther off you go the farther down you go. I can sail around to the
East Indies." How plain it all was. How simple the mind--majestic
like the simplicity of a mountain in its greatness. Who are the great
inventors? They are ever the simple, plain, everyday people who see
the need and set about to supply it.
I was once lecturing in North Carolina, and the cashier of the bank
sat directly behind a lady who wore a very large hat. I said to that
audience, "Your wealth is too near to you; you are looking right over
it." He whispered to his friend, "Well, then, my wealth is in that
hat." A little later, as he wrote me, I said, "Wherever there is a
human need there is a greater fortune than a mine can furnish." He
caught my thought, and he drew up his plan for a better hat pin than
was in the hat before him, and the pin is now being manufactured. He
was offered fifty-five thousand dollars for his patent. That man
made his fortune before he got out of that hall. This is the whole
question: Do you see a need?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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