My hopes were high, and I looked every day for some change to take place. What it was to be I knew not, but that it would come I felt certain if I kept on. One day the chance came.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of hope and persistence in the face of uncertainty.
In this quote, Andrew Carnegie reflects on the power of maintaining hope and a positive outlook while waiting for opportunities to arise. He expresses the belief that by continually striving and holding onto the expectation of change, one can eventually encounter the opportunities they seek, underscoring the importance of perseverance and faith in one's journey towards success.
In practice
In a motivational speech about persevering through tough times.
Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune.
To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.
It is not the rich man's son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race for life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the dark horse in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.
You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.
Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.
Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.
Don't wait until you feel like taking positive action. Take the action and then you will feel like doing it.
As you begin to take action toward the fulfillment of your goals and dreams, you must realize that not every action will be perfect. Not every action will produce the desired result. Not every action will work. Making mistakes, getting it almost right, and experimenting to see what happens are all part of the process of eventually getting it right.
You don't think. It's all instinct. If you stop to think, you're gone.
Second place is meaningless. You can't always be first, but you have to believe that you should have been - that you were never beaten - that time just ran out on you.
But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
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