--- 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: 9 number: 5 published: 1906-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Some Wise Sayings," *Improvement Era* 9, no. 5 (March 1906): 348.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0905unse 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: improvementera0905unse start_page: 348 end_page: 348 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1906-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0905unse publication_year: 1906 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 1906, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Wise Sayings 348 IMPROVEMENT ERA. thinkers, statesmen, and reformers, the introducers of ideals, the founders of institutions. The large, ill- ordered world gives us the great reprobates and criminals, the Macbeths, the Neros, the Napoleons. The rigidly bounded world gives us the narrow, conservative, the 'old fogy, ' or, sometimes, the fanatic of one idea; the continually expanding world gives us the liberal, the reformer, who, instead of fixing his eyes on the past, is continually looking into the future, and making plans for rendering it better than the present." "A pessimist," says Mr. Davidson elsewhere, "proclaims himself a failure in world-building." Education aims to make the world of each individual large, well-ordered, and continually expanding; but the most imperative demand is that it shall be well-ordered. To whatever extent the intellect may be expanded and developed, and the feelings cultivated, life is yet a failure unless these powers are properly coordinated and employed in social service. Character grows out of conduct, and conduct depends primarily upon the will to do. The human organism is such that whatever sort of conduct is initiated tends to repeat itself, until it becomes a habit firmly fixed. The formation of habits, then, should be strictly guarded by the rational will, both to exclude all evil, and to promote the good, by carrying every worthy sentiment into intelligent action. Salt Lake City, Utah. SOME WISE SAYINGS. "There is no secret of success but work." ''Would you live long, work hard." "Every man is the architect of his own fortune." "One thing at a time, and that done well." "What has been done can be done again." "Be just and fear not." "Be cautious but bold. " It takes infinite patience and courage to compel men to have confidence in you." "Never use what is not your own; never buy what you cannot pay for; never sell what you haven't got." Whatsoever thy hand find'eth to do, do it with thy might." "You cannot dream yourself into a character, you must forge one."