I Dare You!

YOU CAN BE BIGGER THAN YOU ARE

YOU CAN BE BIGGER THAN YOU ARE

I DARE YOU!
It is difficult to put a challenge on paper. I would rather look you straight in the eye and say, “I dare you!” In my mind that’s exactly what I am doing. I am on one side of a table. You are on the other. I am looking across and saying “I dare you!”

I Dare You, young man, you who come from a home of poverty—I dare you to have the qualities of a Lincoln.

I Dare You, heir of wealth and proud ancestry, with your generations of worthy stock, your traditions of leadership—I dare you to achieve something that will make the future point to you with even more pride than the present is pointing to those who have gone before you.

“I Dare You” is for the daring few who are headed somewhere. Those afraid to Dare might as well pass it up. It will weary the lazy because it calls for immediate action. It will bore the sophisticated, and amuse the skeptics. It will antagonize others. Some will not even know what it is all about. It will not be over popular because it calls for courage, swift and daring. But in the eyes of you, one of the priceless few, I trust will come a gleam of battle as you read on. You can be a bigger person than you are and I am going to prove it to you.

“That tower of strength
Which stood
four-square to all
Winds that blew.”

—Tennyson

Our most valuable possessions are those which can be shared without lessening; those which when shared multiply. Our least valuable possessions are those which when divided are diminished.

“All who joy would win

Must share it. Happiness was born a twin.”

“Ye are the salt of the earth;
Ye are the light of the world.”

—From the Sermon on the Mount

are the salt of the earth;
Ye are the light of the world.”

—From the Sermon on the Mount

“What I’ve dared I’ve willed;
And what I’ve willed, I’ll do!

—Melville