The Science of Being Great
Wallace D. Wattles 1910
This self-help guide presents personal greatness as something developed through thought and deliberate action. Its short chapters include a mental exercise for putting its advice into practice.
82 pages 1h 35m reading time
- One of the three short New Thought guides by Wattles, along with The Science of Getting Rich and The Science of Being Well, which together form a core set of early 1900s self-help.
- Argues that every person carries within them a share of the same divine power that runs through all of life, so anyone can grow into greatness by learning to think for themselves.
- Teaches that true greatness means seeing the good in every person, refusing to act from anger or fear, and doing each small task in the present with the same care you would give a great one.
Came out as he died
Wattles died in early 1911, and this book appeared that same year, among his last works.
Printed by a New Thought publisher
Elizabeth Towne, who ran the New Thought magazine Nautilus in Holyoke, Massachusetts, published it.
Built on famous examples
Wattles points to people like Abraham Lincoln and Jesus as models of the greatness he describes.