Friday, July 01, 2011

“If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t;
If you’d like to win but you think you can’t,
You can almost be certain you won’t.

If you think that you’ll lose, you are lost,
For out in the world you will find
Success begins with a person’s will;
It’s all in the state of the mind.

If you think you’re outclassed you are;
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve just got to be sure of yourself
Before you can win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To a stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the person who wins
Is the person that THINKS they can.”
~Unknown

1 comment:

Φ said...

Coincidentally, I just started reading Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk, and I found something relevant to this poem (by Walter D. Wintle, by the way):

There exists a vast gulf of randomness and uncertainty between the creation of a great novel...and the presence of huge stacks of that novel...at the front of thousands of retail outlets. That's why successful people in every field are almost universally members of a certain set---the set of people who don't give up (10-11).

And it just occurred to me that this article is also relevant:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391794/index.htm

Thanks for the poem. I found it inspirational.