SELF-CONFIDENCE 199COMMENTARY
From Think and Grow Rich: "The fear of criticism robs man of his initiative, destroys
his power of imagination, limits his individuality, takes away his self-reliance, and does
him damage in a hundred other ways. Parents often do their children irreparable
injury by criticizing them .... It should be recognized as a crime (in reality it is a
crime of the worst nature), for any parent to build an inferiority complex in the mind
of a child, through unnecessary criticism. Employers who understand human nature
get the best there is in employees, not by criticism but by constructive suggestion. "The Fear oj Loss oj Love oj Someone
The source from which this fear originated needs but little description,
for it is obvious that it grew out of man's nature to steal his fellow man's
mate, or at least to take liberties with her.
There can be little doubt that jealousy and all other similar forms of
more or less mild dementia praecox (insanity) grew out of the fear we
all inherited of the loss of love of someone.
Of all the sane fools I have studied, the jealous lover is the oddest
and strangest. Fortunately, I have had personal experience of this form
of insanity, and from that experience I learned that the fear of the loss
of love of someone is one of the most painful, if not in fact the most
painful, of all the six basic fears. It seems reasonable to add that this
fear plays more havoc with the human mind than do any of the other
six basic fears of mankind, often leading to the more violent forms of
permanent insanity.
COMMENTARY
From the Appendix to Lesson One: "This fear fills the asylums with the insanely
jealous, for jealousy is nothing but a form of insanity. It also fills the divorce courts
and causes murders and other forms of cruel punishment. It is a holdover, handed
down through social heredity, from the Stone Age when man preyed upon his