From [_Team of Rivals_ by Doris Kearns Goodwin](https://bookshop.org/p/books/team-of-rivals-the-political-genius-of-abraham-lincoln-doris-kearns-goodwin/586230).

>“Get the books, and read and study them,” [Lincoln] told a law student seeking advice in 1855. It did not matter, he continued, whether the reading be done in a small town or a large city, by oneself or in the company of others. “The _books_, and your _capacity_ for understanding them, are just the same in all places. . . . Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”

**“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”**

It's not the amount of reading you have to do, nor how good your professor is. How often you go to office hours or how prepared you are for cold calls does not matter, either. With whom you study, or the extracurriculars in which you participate are also not important.

The most important thing is _your own resolution to succeed_.

Read Justice Felix Frankfurter's [letter of advice to a young person interested in going into the law here.](https://www.dltn.io/posts/Felix-Frankfurter%E2%80%99s-Letter-of-Advice-to-a-Young%20Person-Interested-in-Going-into-the-Law)