“Somebody says: ‘But you don’t know my circumstances, Mr. Sunday. I’m
handicapped by my parents. I’m handicapped by poverty.’ Listen! Go down
tonight and get down your books and read of the men of history who have
crept and crawled from the sewers of poverty and the quagmires of squalor.
Obscurity never kept Benjamin Franklin walking the streets of Philadelphia
gnawing at his loaf. Obscurity didn’t keep Edison working as a telegraph
operator at $60.00 a month. Obscurity didn’t keep David herding sheep. If
gold and diamonds weren’t so hard to get they wouldn’t be worth so much.
Obscurity didn’t keep Grant in a tannery. Obscurity didn’t keep Garfield
on the towpath of a canal. If you’ve got it in you, squalor and want can’t
keep you down.”
“If you are going to win out you must have grit. That means you must be
able to say “no” when asked to do wrong, so loud it will stagger hell.
Or “yes” so loud it will gladden the angels of God. Put up your dukes and
fight the devil.”