Napoleon declared, “Victory belongs to the most persevering¹.” Upon careful study we find perseverance² depends upon three things -purpose, will, and enthusiasm. He who has a purpose is always concentrating his forces. By the will, the hope and the plan are prevented from evaporating into dreams.Enthusiasm keeps the interest up, and makes the obstacles seem small.

Life is in a sense a battle. The man who thinks to get on by mere³ smartness and by idling meets failure at last. Perseverance is the master impulse of the firmest souls, and holds the key to those treasure-houses of knowledge from which the world has drawn⁴ its wealth both of wisdom and of moral worth.

Great men never wait for opportunities; they make them. They seize upon whatever is at hand, work out their problem, and master the situation. The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given to him. This is success and there is no other.

One of the important lessons of life is to learn how to get victory out of defeat. It takes courage and stamina⁵, when mortified⁶ by humiliating disaster, to seek in the ruins the elements of future conquest. Yet this measures the difference between those who succeed and those who fail. We cannot measure a man by his failures. We must know what use he makes of them. The man who has not fought his way upward and does not bear the scar of desperate conflict does not know the highest meaning of success.

参考翻译（王伟明）

拿破仑曾经说过，“成功属于那些有毅力的人”。通过细致的研究，我们发现毅力取决于三方面——目标、意志和激情。一个有目标的人一定会集中他的所有精力去做一件事情；只有有了强烈的想要成功的意志，一个人的梦想和计划才不能破灭而得以实现；激情可使人的兴趣持续下去而不至于衰减，使人蔑视困难的存在。

在某种意义上讲，人生是场斗争。仅仅妄想通过小聪明和懒惰取得成功的人最终都会遭遇失败。毅力是那些意志最坚定的人前进的主要推动力；毅力是取得财富的钥匙。这些财富是知识的宝库，在这里人们既可以得到智慧的启迪又能得到道德价值的提升。

伟大的人从来不会坐着等待机会的到来，而是要创造机会。他们会抓住自身拥有的资源，解决问题，掌控形势。在世界上一个人能做的最伟大的事情就是用自身仅有的资源创造出最多的价值。这就是成功唯一的定义。

生活教给我们一堂重要的课就是怎样从失败中取得成功。受尽巨大灾难的凌辱却还在废墟中寻找未来，而此斗争必备的要素是勇气和耐力。这正是成功者和失败者的区别所在。我们不能用失败来评判一个人，我们必须知道他能从失败中学到什么。一个人，不求上进、没有承受过绝望的冲击和矛盾的痛苦，是不会理解成功的真正内涵的。