Over the holidays, I picked up my The Dangerous Book for Boys book and was flipping through it. If you know me well, I am often thinking about how to be like my dad and how to raise my boys to be like my dad. Or simply, how to be a man.

I read again this quote at the beginning of the book and loved it… again. I have a great desire to raise my boys well.

“Don’t worry about genius and don’t worry about not being clever. Trust rather to hard work, perseverance, and determination. The best motto for a long march is ‘Don’t grumble. Plug on.’
“You hold your future in your own hands. Never waver in this belief. Don’t swagger. The boy who swaggers- like the man who swaggers- has little else that he can do. He is a cheap-Jack crying his own paltry wares. It is the empty tin that rattles most. Be honest. Be loyal. Be kind. Remember that the hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being unselfish. As a quality it is one of the finest attributes of manliness.”

-This quote is from Sir Frederick Treves. It is at the beginning of The Dangerous Book for Boys.