I don't think that the boy Ben understood all that I said, for I was dealing with experiences common mostly to older men, but he somehow seemed to get the spirit of it, for quite unconsciously he began to hitch his chair toward me, then he laid his hand on my chair-arm and finally and quite simply he rested his arm against mine and looked at me with all his eyes.

I keep learning that there is nothing which reaches men's hearts like talking straight out the convictions and emotions of your innermost soul.

Those who hear you may not agree with you, or they may not understand you fully, but something incalculable, something vital, passes.

And as for a boy or girl it is one of the sorriest of mistakes to talk down to them; almost always your lad of fifteen thinks more simply, more fundamentally, than you do; and what he accepts as good coin is not facts or precepts, but feelings and convictions--LIFE.

And why shouldn't we speak out?
"I long ago decided," I said, "to try to be fully what I am and not to be anything or anybody else." "That's right, that's right," exclaimed Mr.Stanley, nodding his head vigorously.
"It's about the oldest wisdom there is," I said, and with that I thought of the volume I carried in my pocket, and straightway I pulled it out and after a moment's search found the passage I wanted.
"Listen," I said, "to what this old Roman philosopher said"-- and I held the book up to the lamp and read aloud: "'You can be invincible if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to conquer.