Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.
-Maxwell Maltz
Here is a well known story of a bet.
There was a man named Richard Daly. He was a patentee of the Irish theatres. He usually spent Saturday evening in the society of some of the first wits and men of fashion of the day. Gambling was introduced, and the manager staked a large sum that he would cause a word to be spoken, by a certain day, in all the principal streets of Dublin, having no meaning, neither derived from any known language. Wagers having been laid and the stakes deposited, Daly went immediately to the theatre, and dispatched all the supernumeraries and servants of the establishment with a 'word'. They chalked on most of the shop doors and windows in the city. It is Sunday next day, all the shops were shut, and everyone going to or coming from church saw the word. Every person at the same time repeating it, talking about it. The word was heard all over Dublin. Obviously he won the bet.
The word was QUIZ.
The circumstance of so strange a word being on every door and window caused much surprise; and ever since should a strange story be attempted to be passed current and it draws forth the expression of "you are quizzing me."
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