Self-help is the best help.
Source: Three Hundred Aesop's Fables, Hercules and the Wagoner (1867)
Topic
Self-confidence in this collection is most reliably described as a relationship between trust and knowledge rather than a feeling. Goethe's as-soon-as-you-trust-yourself-you-will-know-how-to-live makes the sequence explicit: self-trust is the precondition of effective action, not a consequence of it. Vergil's they-can-conquer-who-believe-they-can is the classical version of the same claim applied to military engagement. Thoreau on advancing confidently in the direction of your dreams makes confidence navigational: it is not bravado but orientation. King's back-must-be-bent-to-be-ridden applies self-confidence to political dignity: the self-assured person cannot be a vehicle for another's agenda. Shaw's I-often-quote-myself is the comic extreme of self-confidence that crosses into self-absorption, but it works because it is also true: quoting yourself is simply knowing your own material. Vergil's wolf-unconcerned-by-the-size-of-the-flock is the natural world's version: the confident creature does not waste attention on threats it has already discounted.
Self-help is the best help.
The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
The gentleman, then, is the man who is master of himself, who respects himself, and makes others respect him.