by Napoleon Hill

Once a year we should take a retrospective view of life to see what useful knowledge we have gathered.

In my inventory of the past year's experiences I find much to guide me in the future. Among other lessons which Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-one has taught me are the following:

First: That it pays to perform more service and better service than one is paid to perform.

Second: That the destroyer is, in turn destroyed, usually by the reaction of his own destructive efforts.

Third: That Time is the friend of the man who is right and the enemy of the man who is wrong at heart, no matter how clever he may be in the art of deception.

Fourth: That every effect has a cause, and, that the effect corresponds, in nature, to the cause.

Fifth: That like attracts like; that one can no more saturate his mind with thoughts of selfishness, fear and failure and still succeed than he could sow thistles and reap clover.

Sixth: That the Golden Rule is more powerful than the Rule of Gold.

Seventh: That happiness comes only from helping others find it.

I approach my work for the coming year with renewed faith in the philosophy of the foregoing seven paragraphs, and, with positive evidence that I will get out of life exactly in proportion to what I put into it.