Russell H. Conwell, Founder Of The Institutional Church In America: The Work And The Man

The measure of greatness is helpfulness. We have gone back to the method of the Master and learned to test men not by wealth, nor by birth, nor by intellectual power, but by service. Wealth is not to be despised if it is untainted and consecrated. Ancestry is noble if the good survives and the bad perishes in him who boasts of his forebears. Intellectual force is worthy if only it can escape from that cursed attendant, conceit. But they sink, one and all into insignificance when character is considered; for character is the child of godly parents whose names are self-denial and love. The man who lives not for himself but for others, and who has a heart big enough to take all men into its living sympathies—he is the man we delight to honor.