Part 25

Honesty

Under this caption we are expected to say "Honesty is the best policy." This expression is as old as the hills, and if it were not good it would not have obtained so long, for honesty certainly is the best policy.

Many a man in business practices absolute honesty and integrity, because honesty is the simplest and best method he knows of for doing business.

No man can succeed permanently, who is dishonest in his practices. The successful business man is the one who practices honesty in all actions and dealings during his business experience.

Honesty begets honesty. The man who is honest in his dealings with his fellowman has a subsidy which money cannot buy. He gets honest treatment at the hands of others.

The merchant who cuts a bolt of silk in the middle and puts different prices on each piece, may figure he is making money by his action, but retribution is sure to follow.

Honesty is a slow road to wealth, but, in accordance with the law of compensation, in proportion as the business built up on honesty is slow, so in proportion will it last longer.

Honesty is the best advertisement a man can have in his business.

Success

If after the employe strikes a balance each day, he finds that he is moving forward, then he is on the road to success. And so it is with the business man, only the proportions are greater.

One cent put at four per cent. interest per annum nineteen hundred years ago, with interest added to the principal every twenty-five years, would represent today more money than there is in the world. It would have taken twenty-five years before the original investment of one cent was doubled.

If a man had started that plan his grandchildren would have said the scheme was no good because it was too slow.

The boy goes to school regularly and shows little advance in his mentality if you measure from day to day, but the boy is gaining every day. He is going ahead slowly but certainly.

The gambler and the foolish man like success to come quickly and with great strides. It is because there are many foolish men and gamblers that the get-rich-quick fake thrives.

The man who gets rich suddenly usually indulges in such sports as lighting cigars with ten dollar bills, and his wind-up is in the pauper's grave.

No man knows the true value of money unless he has worked for it. The man who has earned his dollars through the penny route knows the value of the penny, and he gets mighty good value when he spends a dollar.

The man who walks steadily in one direction does not appear to be making much progress. The ship on the ocean seems to be standing still. When night comes the man who has been walking steadily has disappeared, and the ship that seemed to be standing still has vanished beyond the horizon.

The law of compensation says, The more haste the less speed, and so in the matter of success, we must not feel discouraged because the speed at which we are traveling forward does not seem noticeable when compared with the rapid pace of some of our friends.

Be not impatient. Learn to wait. Be a good stayer. Do not let the success of the get-rich-quick creature deter you from your resolve to move forward slowly. You will get there in the long run.

And when your hair is silvered and cares rest easily upon your shoulders, the long road you have traveled will be a source of infinite satisfaction to you. Your retrospection will be pleasant, and the very things that were hard in your youth, are sources of satisfaction to you in your old age.

Do not use the yard measure in counting your progress, but use the inch rule that has fine fractions on it.

Thinking

"I did not think" is an excuse offered by many. Thinking is the thing in business.

The trunk railroad, the trans-Atlantic cable, the steam engine, the electric light, the wireless telegraph, the very republic in which we are living, came about through thinking.

Every man should take from five to fifty minutes each day to divorce his mind from the strenuous activity surrounding him, and devote that time to thought, and good will come out of it.

The brain is like a muscle, it must be exercised or it becomes flabby.

Cultivate concentration of thought; study your sphere of usefulness; cut out the weeds that grow in your brain; get out of the mental rut you are in; stop drifting; keep your brain healthily active.

Men are paid either for what they think or for what their muscles do. Man's muscles have a limit; he can move just so much matter by physical force. But his capacity from a mental standpoint is unlimited.