---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 3
number: 4
published: 1900-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Notes," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 4 (February 1900): 310.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera34unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera34unse
start_page: 310
end_page: 310
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera34unse
  publication_year: 1900
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Notes

<!-- page:310 -->

NOTES.

 "Don't wait for great things; for while you wait, the door to little ones may close."

 To think we are able is almost to be so; to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself. Thus earnest resolution has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of omnipotence. Samuel Smiles.

 It is related that Dwight L. Moody once offered to his Northfield pupils a prize of five hundred dollars for the best thought. This took the prize: "Men grumble because God puts thorns with roses; wouldn't it be better to thank God that he puts roses with thorns?"

 "I attach great importance to reading good books. Whatever success I have attained I attribute to the literature that I have read. It opens a world of thought and reasoning, and uplifts one to higher ideals and nobler ends. One may be poor, but in spirit he feels himself a prince, and equal to any other man. Good reading stimulates action and thought. I am never more pleased than when I see a young man read-

ing a good book. I consider it one of the best signs." — W. A. Nash, banker.

 Who has not noticed the power of love in an awkward, crabbed, shiftless, lazy man? He becomes gentle, chaste in language, enthusiastic, energetic. Love brings out the poetry in him. It is only an idea, a sentiment, and vet what magic it has wrought. Nothing we can see has touched the man, yet he is entirely transformed! So a high ambition entirely transforms a human being, making him despise ease and sloth, welcome toil and hardship, and shaking even kingdoms to gratify

his master passion. Mere ambition has impelled many a man to a life of eminence and usefulness; its higher manifestation, aspiration, has led him beyond the stars. If the aim be right, the life in its details cannot be far wrong. Your heart must inspire what your hands execute, or the work will be poorly done. The hand cannot reach higher than does the heart. Success.