Any Person May Become Great - The Science of Being Great - Wallace Wattles

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Any person may become great. There is a principle of
power in every person. By the intelligent use and direction
of this principle, man can develop his own mental faculties.
Man has an inherent power by which he may grow
in whatsoever direction he pleades, and there does not appear
to be any limit to the possibilities of his growth.

(00:21):
No man has yet become so great in any faculty,
but that it is possible for some one else to
become greater. The possibility is in the original substance from
which man is made. Genius is omniscient flowing into man.
Genius is more than talent. Talent may merely be one
faculty developed out of proportion to other faculties. But genius

(00:43):
is the union of man and God in the acts
of the soul. Great men are always greater than their deeds.
They are in connection with the reserve of the power
that is without limit. We do not know where the
boundary of the mental powers of man is. We do
not even know that there is a bad The power
of conscious growth is not given to the lower animals.

(01:05):
It is man's alone, and may be developed and increased
by him. The lower animals can to a great extent
be trained and developed by man. But man can train
and develop himself. He alone has this power, and he
has it to an apparently unlimited extent. The purpose of
life for man is growth, just as the purpose of

(01:27):
life for trees and plants is growth. Trees and plants
grow automatically and the long fixed lines. Man can grow
as he will. Trees and plants can only develop certain
possibilities and characteristics. Man can develop any power which is
or has been shown by any person anywhere. Nothing that

(01:47):
is possible in spirit is impossible in flesh and blood.
Nothing that man can think is impossible in action. Nothing
that man can imagine is impossible of realization. Man is
formed for growth, and he is under the necessity of growing.
It is essential to his happiness that he should continuously advance.

(02:08):
Life without progress becomes unendurable, and the person who seeses
from growth must either become imbecile or insane. The greater
and more harmonious and well rounded his growth, the happier
man will be. There is no possibility in any man
that is not in every man. But if they proceed naturally,
not two men will grow into the same thing, or

(02:29):
be alike. Every man comes into the world with a
predisposition to grow along certain lines, and growth is easier
for him along those lines than in any other way.
This is a wise provision, for it gives endless variety.
It is as if a gardener should throw all his
bulbs into one basket. To the superficial observer, they would

(02:50):
look alike, but growth reveals the tremendous difference. So if
men and women they are like a basket of bulbs.
One may be a rose and add brightness and color
to some dark corner of the world. One may be
a lily and teach a lesson of love and purity
to every eye that sees. One may be a climbing
vine and hide the rugged outlines of some dark rock.

(03:13):
One may be a great oak. Among those boughs the
birds shall nest and sing, and beneath whose shade the
flocks shall rest at noon. But every one will be
something worth while, something rare, something perfect. There are undreamed
of possibilities in the common lives all around us. In
a large sense, there are no common people in times

(03:33):
of national stress and peril. The cracker box loafer of
the corner store, and the village drunkard become heroes and
statesmen through the quickening of principle of power within them.
There is a genius in every man and woman waiting
to be brought forth. Every village has its great man
or woman, someone to whom all go for advice in
time of trouble, someone who is instinctively recognized as being

(03:57):
great in wisdom and insight. To so such a one
the minds of the whole community turn in times of
local crisis. He is tacitly recognized as being great. He
does small things in a great way. He could do
great things as well if he did, But undertake them.
So can any man, so can you. The principle of

(04:18):
power gives us just what we ask of it. If
we only undertake little things, it only gives us power
for little things. But if we try to do great
things in a great way, it gives us all the
power there is. But beware of undertaking great things in
a small way. Of that we shall speak farther on.
There are two mental attitudes a man may take. One

(04:41):
makes him like a football. It has resilience and reacts
strongly when forces applied to it, but it originates nothing.
It never acts of itself. There is no power within it.
Men of this type are controlled by circumstances and environment.
Their destinies are decided by things external to themselves. The

(05:02):
principle of power within them is never really active at all.
They never speak or act from within. The other attitude
makes men like a flowing spring. Power comes out from
the center of him. He has within him a well
of water springing up into everlasting life. He radiates force
heighest felt by his environment. The principle of power in

(05:25):
him is in constant action. He is self active. He
hath life in himself. No greater good can come to
any man or woman than to become self active. All
the experiences of life are designed by providence to force
men and women into self activity, to compel them to
cease being creatures of circumstances and master their environment. In

(05:49):
his lowest stage, man is the child of chance and circumstance,
and the slave of fear. His acts are all reactions
resulting from the impingement upon him of forces in his environment.
He acts only as he has acted upon. He originates
nothing but the lowest savage has within him a principle
of power sufficient to master all that he fears and

(06:10):
If he learns this and becomes self active, he becomes
as one of the gods. The awakening of the principle
of power in man is the real conversion, the passing
from death to life. It is when the dead he
heard the voice of the Son of Man and come
forth and live. It is the resurrection and the life.
When it is awakened, man becomes the Son of the

(06:33):
Highest and all powers given to him in heaven and
on earth. Nothing was ever in any man that is
not in you. No man ever made more spiritual or
mental power than you can attain, or did greater things
than you can accomplish. You can become what you want
to be.