with its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities
of life and the elements of its continual progress then,--it is weak,
held by the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must
surrender. Its independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to
its power to sustain itself from within. What is true of nations is
true of individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of
individuals magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the
screen of the past. History is the biography of a nation; biography is
the history of an individual. So it must be that the individual who is
most strong in any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his
inherent strength, who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to
uphold him. He must ever be self-reliant.

The wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do
the real work of the nation, proved the nation's downfall. The constant
dependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life
for them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual.
Then, through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for
idle, luxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters,
became,--a nation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on
others to do those things we should do for ourselves, our self-reliance
weakens and our powers and our control of them becomes continuously
less.

Man to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all
things, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great.
This self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring
to stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do
not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true self-
reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle