Monday, June 9, 2014

Encouragement

Some of the greatest success stories of history have followed a word of encouragement or an act of confidence by a love one or a trusting friend.

Had it not been for a confident wife, Sophia, we might not have listed among the great names of literature, the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

  • When Nathaniel, a heartbroken man, went home to tell his wife that he was a failure and had been fired from his job in a customhouse, she surprised him with an exclamation of joy.
"Now," she said triumphantly, "you can write your book!"
"Yes," replied the man, with sagging confidence, "and what shall we live on while I am writing it?"
  • To his amazement, she opened a drawer and pulled out a substantial amount of money.
"Where on earth did you get that?" he exclaimed.

"I have always known you were a man of genius," she told him. "I knew that someday you would write a masterpiece. So every week, out of the money you gave me for housekeeping, I saved a little bit. So here is enough to last us for one whole year."
  • From her trust and confidence came one of the greatest novels of American literature, The Scarlet Letter
Nido Qubein
Allposters




















Lesson Well Learned, Mimi

2 comments:

Melissa said...

That poor man needed a wife like her - he was so prone towards depression...but you are right - encouragement is powerful. One of my favorite quotes by Mark Twain is this "“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

I think a good compliment is often just well-phrased encouragement.

Joyce's Ramblings said...

Encouragement is so easy to give. A positive sentence can do so much more then questions of why or how?
Failure starts with not trying!
Heres to 2012 a new and happy year!