A man alone may be puny and insignificant; but, multiplied, be constitutes the power which dominates the earth.
One penny may seem to you a very insignificant thing, but it is the small seed from which fortunes spring. If we want to raise a flower or vegetable, we procure the seed, plant it in good soil, and do all that we can to facilitate its growth; or we may be fortunate enough to procure a half-grown plant; but sometime, somewhere, somebody planted the seed.
The penny is nothing in the world but the seed of that wonderful growth which the best of us cannot help admiring, and for which all of us long — the fortune plant! If you would have one of these wonderful plants for your own, if you dream of sitting at ease under its branches in your old age, go about it in a rational way. Prom this moment, treat that little disk of copper, with the head of an Indian on one side and "one cent" on the other, with the respect that a fortune seed deserves. Don't scatter and waste seeds so valuable, but plant them in the soil which will foster them — the savings bank.
There is hardly an able-bodied laborer who might not become financially independent if he would but carefully husband his receipts and guard against the little leaks of needless expense. But, unfortunately, this is the one thing which the working-man finds it the hardest to do. There are a hundred laborers who are willing to work hard to every half-dozen who are willing properly to husband their earnings. Instead of hoarding a small percentage of their receipts, so as to provide against sickness or want of employment, they eat and drink up their earnings as they go, and thus, in the first financial crash, when mills and factories "shut down" and capitalists lock up their cash instead of using it in great enterprises, they are ruined. Men who thus live "from hand to mouth," never keeping more than a day's march ahead of actual want, are little better off than slaves.
"I have often been asked to define the true secret of success," says Sir Thomas Lipton. “It is thrift in all its phases and, principally, thrift as applied to saving. A young man may have many friends, but he will find none so steadfast, so constant, so ready to respond to his wants, so capable of pushing him ahead, as a little leather-covered book, with the name of a bank on its cover. Saving is the first great principle of success. It creates independence, it gives a young man standing, it fills him with vigor, it stimulates him with proper energy; in fact, it brings to him the best part of any success, — happiness and contentment. If it were possible to inject the quality of saving into every boy, we would have a great many more real men."
"Provided he has some ability and good sense to start with," said Philip D. Armour, "there is no reason why any young man who is thrifty, honest, and economical should not accumulate money and attain so-called success in life." When asked to what qualities he attributed his own success, Mr. Armour said: “I think that thrift and economy had much to do with it. I owe much to my mother's training and to a good line of Scotch ancestors who have always been thrifty and economical.”
"Every boy should realize, in starting out, that he can never accumulate money unless he acquires the habit of saving," says Russell Sage. "Even if he can save only a few cents at the beginning, it is better than saving nothing at all; and he will find, as the months go on, that it becomes easier for him to lay by a part of his earnings. It is surprising how fast an account in a savings bank can be made to grow, and the boy who starts one and keeps it up stands a good chance of spending a prosperous old age. Some people who spend every cent of their income on their living expenses are always bewailing the fact that they have never become rich."
“The first thing that a man should learn to do” says Andrew Carnegie, "is to save his money. By saving his money he promotes thrift, — the most valued of all habits. Thrift is the great fortune-maker. It draws the line between the savage and the civilized man. Thrift not only develops the fortune, but it develops, also, the man's character."