There is no royal flower strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for whatever success I have attained has been the result of much hard work and many sleepless nights.
Madam C. J. WalkerRead
My object in life is not simply to make money for myself or to spend it on myself in dressing or running around in an automobile, but I love to use a part of what I make in trying to help others.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of using one's resources to benefit others rather than just for personal gain.
Madam C. J. Walker highlights a selfless approach to success, suggesting that the true purpose of wealth goes beyond individual enjoyment. She believes in the value of contributing to the well-being of others, using her achievements as a means to uplift those around her, thus promoting a sense of social responsibility and community support.
In practice
During a speech at a charity event to inspire others to give back.
There is no royal flower strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for whatever success I have attained has been the result of much hard work and many sleepless nights.
I am not satisfied in making money for myself. I endeavor to provide employment for hundreds of the women of my race.
I have made it possible for many colored women to abandon the washtub for a more pleasant and profitable occupation.
Don't think that because you have to go down in the wash-tub that you are any less a lady!
The girls and women of our race must not be afraid to take hold of business endeavor and, by patient industry, close economy, determined effort and close application to business, wring success out of a number of business opportunities that lie at their very doors.
As I bent over the washboard and looked at my arms buried in soapsuds, I said to myself, 'What are you going to do when you grow old and your back gets stiff?' This set me to thinking, but with all my thinking I couldn't see how a poor washerwoman was going to better my condition.
The Grecians and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty but not the principle, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
In all things there must be order, but it must of such a kind as is possible to observe...to see a man burnt for doing as he thought right, harms the people, for this is a matter of conscience.
Far too many young people today have no spiritual roots. The've been deprived of values by an agnostic, contemporary culture.
It's all real in Outside, everything there is, because I saw an airplane in the blue between the clouds. Ma and me can't go there because we don't know the secret code, but it's real all the same. Before I didn't know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it.
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