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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Russell Herman Conwell (1843–1925)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 817
AUTHOR: Russell Herman Conwell (1843–1925)
QUOTATION: Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and what you are, in Philadelphia, now. He that can give to his city any blessing, he who can be a good citizen while he lives here, he that can make better homes, he that can be a blessing whether he works in the shop or sits behind the counter or keeps house, whatever be his life, he who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia.
ATTRIBUTION: RUSSELL H. CONWELL, Acres of Diamonds, p. 59 (1915).

Conwell gave this public address more than 6,000 times from 1877 until his death in 1925. He tailored his speech to individual cities by changing Philadelphia, his home town, to the name of the city where he was speaking.
SUBJECTS: Greatness