--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Wells, Samuel H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 8 number: 5 published: 1905-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Samuel H. Wells, "Some Sayings," *Improvement Era* 8, no. 5 (March 1905): 350–351.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0805unse 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: improvementera0805unse start_page: 350 end_page: 351 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1905-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0805unse publication_year: 1905 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 1905, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Sayings SOME SAYINGS. BT SAMUEL H. WELLS. All things do not come to him who waits, but to him who works. I challenge you to name one sin that man can commit, wherein he injures himself and himself alone. Opportunities never make a man great. They only give him a chance to show the world what they really are. Life and how to live,—this is the greatest problem that confronts man. In order to solve it successfully we must first solve another,—time and how to spend it. Man lives but one of eternity's hours; then he dies and is forgotten by men; yet in the eternal books above is written, by the hand of a holy angel in language that will never fade neither grow dim with age, the tale of his mortal pilgrimage. Mind is the thermometer 'of the human family; and as the thermometer registers the degrees of heat and cold, according to the temperature of the atmosphere surrounding it, so mind registers man's degree or station among his fellow men according to his mental capacity. SOME SAYINGS. 351 All men are self-made men. As he who sits on the pinnacle of fame, enthroned in the glory of his own intelligence, has raised himself to that position by his own efforts, so he whom we see behind prison bars, or groveling in the gutter in ignorance and shame, has made himself what he is by his own acts. The bee that sips honey from the hive without gathering honey itself is considered a drone. Likewise, he who reads the volumes of history and philosophy, who uses the canals, roads and bridges, who worships in churches built by preceding generations, or in any way enjoys the fruits of their labors without contributing something himself to benefit future generations, is a drone in the social hive, and is guilty of robbing his own posterity. No man is born great. Children are not born with strong physical or mental powers; they are born with power to achieve greatness, but this is only developed by individual effort. If men follow their natural desires, they will not place themselves in the position necessary to develop the more noble, refined and God-like talents which they possess; for these talents are developed only in the rigid school of experience, sorrow and selfdenial. Salt Lake City, Utab.