---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - J. B. Ball
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 18
number: 5
published: 1915-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'J. B. Ball, "Maxims and Wise Sayings," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 5 (March 1915): 416.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse
  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: improvementera1805unse
start_page: 416
end_page: 416
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse
  publication_year: 1915
  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 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Maxims and Wise Sayings

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416                       IMPROVEMENT ERA
                       Comely and vast as it was formed to grow;
                       With all its thousand downward-dropping stems
                       Waiting to fall from all its thousand boughs,
                       And all its lakhs and lakhs of lustrous leaves
                       Waiting to push to sunlight, and so make
                       New canopies of flower and fruit and shade,
                       Where creatures of the field, fowls of the air,
                       Monkey and squirrel folk might find their home,
                       And man and cattle 'neath its ample roof
                       Have shelter from the noon. This Forest King—
                       Of bulk to overspread a Raja's camp
                       Was wrapped in what thou sayest passeth sight.
                                —Edwin Arnold, The Secret of Death.

                     Maxims and Wise Sayings
  From Wii.dows in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, 1904

                   COPIED AND CONTRIBUTED BY J. B. BALL

      Striving to better, oft     we mar what's good.
     Wisely and slow they stumble that run fast.
                          ;

     When clouds appear, wise men put on -their cloaks.
     Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take
for granted, nor to find fault, but to weigh arid consider.
      Self-love is not so vile a thing as self-negligence.
      Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.
      O  world, how apt the poor are to be proud
      The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.
      How   poor are they that have no patience.
      Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
      Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
      Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills.
      Truth   is    truth to the end of reckoning.
      Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
      Past and to come seem best, things present worse.
      Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
      Time is an old justice that examines all offenders.
      Strong reasons make strong actions.
      Men should be what they seem.
      No might nor greatness in mortality can censure 'scape.
      Those that with haste will make a mighty fire, begin it with
weak straws.
      Ignorance is the curse of God.
      Knowledge, the wings wherewith we fly to heaven.
      Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.
      Winning will put any man into courage.