Influence, How To Exert It

Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915. Excerpt: ... LESSON X BY THE PRESTIGE GAINED FROM CONCENTRATION Concentration is one of the most marvelous forces that can be conceived. Without concentration, no success is possible; if it is present, we must consider it as the work of chance, not reckon too much on its duration, and remember the popular proverb which says: He who comes to the sound of the flute goes back to the sound of the drum. In other words, what a chance circumstance has brought may depart on the wings of an unforeseen happening. Far different is the success which we acquire by reason that, having sought it and willed it with all our powers, we have strained every effort to evoke it and no longer hug it to ourselves for fear that it should leave us. Fidelity to an idea is always the initial step to all successes. For if an idea has no time to become at home with us, if what is rightly called the crystallization of thought does not form the foundation of every decision, we shall find it impossible to give it definite shape, and it will fade away like impalpable smoke. If, on the other hand, we know how to exercise concentration, this idea will soon become a focus of organization around which the association of ideas will come to marshal the reasons that determine the action which we have in mind. Thoughts are things, said Prentice Mulford. Without wishing to follow him in his abstruse explanation of this statement, it is easy to imagine how true the saying is, seeing that in thinking deeply on a subject we succeed in picturing it to ourselves in an almost tangible fashion. There is no doubt, said Yoritomo, that concentration develops all our senses and brings them to a degree of remarkable acuteness. It stands to us in the stead of knowledge, for by its means we acquire the facility, tha...