Never depend upon the assistance of friends and relations in any thing
which you are able to do yourself; for nothing is more fickle and
uncertain. The man, who relies upon another for the execution of any
affair of importance, is not only kept in a wretched and slavish
suspense while he expects the issue of the matter, but generally meets
with a disappointment. While he, who lays the chief stress of his
business upon himself, and depends upon his own industry and attention
for the success of his affairs, is in the fairest way to attain his end:
and, if at last he should miscarry, has this to comfort him--that it was
not through his own negligence, and a vain expectation of the assistance
of friends. To stand by ourselves, as much as possible, to exert our own
strength and vigilance in the prosecution of our affairs, is god-like,
being the result of a most noble and highly exalted reason; but they who
procrastinate and defer the business of life by an idle dependance upon
others, in things which it is in their own power to effect, sink down
into a kind of stupid abject slavery, and show themselves unworthy of
the talents with which human nature is dignified.