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 paltry wares. It is the empty tin that rattles most. Be honest. Be loyal. Be kind. Remember that hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being unselfish. As a quality it is one of the finest attributes of manliness.

– Sir Frederick Treves

This from The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Hal and Conn Iggulden. This passage lives before even the table of contents. It’s a gauntlet thrown. A marker that tells you, reading this book will be an adventure.

A brief note on Sir Frederick Treves. He was a radical British surgeon who saved by Edward VII by draining his appendix. A surgical technique not used during that time.