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The miracle you can do
W hile the highest ability accomplishes but little in scattered on a multiplicity of objects, on the other hand, it one has but a thimbleful of brains, and concentrates them upon the thing he has in hand, he may achieve miracles. Momentum in physics, if properly directed, will drive a tallow candle through an inch board.
Just so will oneness of aim and the direction of the energies to a single pursuit, while all others are waived, enable the veriest weakling to make his mark where he strikes.
The general who scatters his soldiers all about the country ensures defeat; so does he whose attention is diffused through innumerable channels, so that it cannot gather in force on any one point.
The human mind, in short, resembles a burning glass, whose rays are intense only as they are concentrated. As the glass burns only when its rays are converged to a focal point, so the mind illumines the world of science, literature or business only when it is directed to a solitary object.
Not perfection as a final goal, but the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining, is the aim in living. The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better. Such a conception makes one severe in judging himself and humane in judging others.
- James Bryant Conant
