How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Dale Carnegie

by Dale Carnegie

If Tchaikovsky had not been frustrated-and driven almost to suicide by his tragic marriage-if his own life had not been pathetic, he probably would never have been able to compose his immortal “Symphonic Pathetique”. If Dostoevsky and Tolstoy had not led tortured lives, they would probably never have been able to write their immortal novels. “If I had not been so great an invalid,” wrote the man who changed the scientific concept of life on earth-"if I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much work as I have accomplished.” That was Charles Darwin’s confession that his infirmities had helped him unexpectedly. The same day that Darwin was born in England another baby was born in a log cabin in the forests of Kentucky. He, too, was helped by his infirmities. His name was Lincoln- Abraham Lincoln. If he had been reared in an aristocratic family and had had a law degree from Harvard and a happy married life, he would probably never have found in the depths of his heart the haunting words that he immortalised at Gettysburg, nor the sacred poem that he spoke at his second inauguration-the most beautiful and noble phrases ever uttered by a ruler of men: “With malice toward none; with charity for all ...”