Self Improvement Guide

gift can compensate for hard, persistent toil
It matters not what talent or genius a man may possess, no natural
gift can compensate for hard, persistent toil. The Romans had a
maxim as true to-day as it was when first uttered: ‘_Labor omnia
vincit_,’ Toil conquers all things. The earliest Christians lived in
communities and had all things in common. One of their precepts–
a precept up to which all lived–was: ‘_Laborare est orare_,’ To work
is to pray.

Their despondency of mind is equally destructive of spiritual health. It
unbalances all the mental powers, gives a morbid activity to some, and a
kind of reversed action to others. No gloomy spirit is beautiful or
harmonious. We may pity it, but we can not admire it–scarcely love it.
In God”s sight its sadness is an imperfection–in many instances it is
sinfulness. The piety of such a mind is of a questionable character, and
its virtue is liable to be tinctured with selfishness or other evils.
Its judgment is improved. God loves a cheerful spirit, a happy soul. It
is not only a duty we owe to ourselves, but to God, to be happy. Our
efforts to subdue every desponding tendency in our minds should be as
great and as constant as to master our selfish passions or animal
desires. I fully believe we have the power to be happy if we will, or,
at least, the most of us have. Some unfortunate minds are
constitutionally down in the mouth. Poor things! They suffer a great
hereditary evil. They are too hopeless, from a defect in the structure
of their minds; but these are few and far between. The rule is, that we
may be happy if we will. None of the common allotments and evils in life
are absolute barriers in our way. A resolute will and steady purpose,
with a proper time, will overcome all. Then buckle on the armor of life,
oh, young woman, and rouse your spirit to its best efforts to lead a
cheerful and useful life. Let no misfortune weigh you down, but rise
above all, and great will be your reward.

monarch
But true nobility is not that which is conferred by the warrant of a
monarch. If as Pope says, ‘An honest man”s the noblest work of God,’
then the nobles man is the honest man, who with his own clear brain
and strong right arm, wins his way up from the humblest walks in
life, till by virtue of his manhood, he stands the peer of peers, and
by Divine right the equal of all earth”s kings.

for youth
It would be well if we had more judicious books on Marriage, designed
for youth. One on the Philosophy of Marriage; one on the Duties of
Marriage; one on the Religion of Marriage; or all these subjects treated
in one book might be very profitable; and if such a book were designed
for high schools, academies, and colleges, and made a study, as is moral
science and natural religion, it might be made eminently useful. There
is a science of Marriage. It should be developed and made a study. Some
strong mind and pure heart, baptized in the spirit of divine truth and
love, should write it out. I know the youth of our country would receive
it gladly and study it with great profit. What is most wanted is thought
and enlightenment on the subject. Thought is the grand lever of reform.
This thing of thinking is what makes men great and good. It is the grand
plowshare that turns up the old soil of error and despotism and reveals
the hidden treasures of truth. Get people to thinking and they will be
likely to think themselves right in the end. We want thought on the
subject of Marriage–calm, consecutive, serious thought. Nothing else
will do. We have passion, zeal, impulse, imagination; but we lack
thought. Thought is the helm of passion, the ballast of imagination, the
compass of impulse. Let youth think on the subject as they ought, and
they will marry well.

the chief command of the American patriot army he hesitated to accept
it until it was pressed upon him
Yet Washington had a most modest opinion of himself; and when offered
the chief command of the American patriot army he hesitated to accept
it until it was pressed upon him. When acknowledging in Congress the
honor which had been done him in selecting him to so important a
trust, on the execution of which the future of his country in a great
measure depended, Washington said: ‘I beg it may be remembered, lest
some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, that I
this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself
equal to the command I am honored with.’

The most common, and, perhaps, the most serious of vices is prejudice.
It is a thing imbibed with one”s mother”s milk, fortified by all one”s
youthful surroundings, and only broken through, if at all, by experience
of the world and a deliberate mental effort.

electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, ‘Of what use is
it?’ To which his reply was, ‘What is the use of a child? It may
become a man!’ When Galvani discovered that a frog”s leg twitched
when placed in contact with different metals, it could scarcely have
been imagined that so apparently insignificant a fact could have led
to important results
When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and
electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, ‘Of what use is
it?’ To which his reply was, ‘What is the use of a child? It may
become a man!’ When Galvani discovered that a frog”s leg twitched
when placed in contact with different metals, it could scarcely have
been imagined that so apparently insignificant a fact could have led
to important results. Yet therein lay the germ of the electric
telegraph, which binds the intelligence of continents together, and,
probably before many years have elapsed will ‘put a girdle round the
globe.’ So, too, little bits of stone and fossil, dug out of the
earth, intelligently interpreted, have issued in the science of
geology and the practical operations of mining, in which large
capitals are invested and vast numbers of persons profitably
employed.

own will; a confession at once devout, poetical, and human; a
history in the shape of a prophecy
‘Here is a sincere and solemn avowal; a public declaration from his
own will; a confession at once devout, poetical, and human; a
history in the shape of a prophecy.’ It concludes with these lines:

down the paths of vanity and frivolity, it is still a means of culture,
an instrumentality in the hands of virtue, an evidence of civilization
But notwithstanding Dress has fascinated so many thousands, and led them
down the paths of vanity and frivolity, it is still a means of culture,
an instrumentality in the hands of virtue, an evidence of civilization.
It addresses itself to the taste, and affords opportunity for its
improvement. Taste is an element of mind. It is the spring-source of the
fine arts, of all the embellishments of life, of poetry, and all that
pertains to elegant literature. It is the grand refiner of life.
Whatsoever cultivates the taste, develops properly its activities, and
refines and elevates its pleasures, does a good office for man. And this
is just the proper office of Dress. It is true that Dress has a mission,
a good one, a moral one, ay, a religious one. It is a refiner, a
cultivator, a subduer of coarseness, barbarity, rudeness. Pity the soul
that has no taste for Dress. The Dress of a man speaks out his soul. In
other words, a man is known by his Dress; not by its richness, not by
its conformity to fashion, but by its neatness, appropriateness,
harmony, and the way he carries it. A clown will carry a king”s dress
clownishly; and a true king will carry a clown”s dress kingishly. It is
not the Dress that makes the man, but the man that makes the Dress.

that I am to be regarded as the apostle of a pure materialism
Many serious letters and a half-humorous criticism in _Punch_ suggest
that I am to be regarded as the apostle of a pure materialism. That is
not so. I quite recognise the existence of other ambitions in the walks
of Art, Religion, or Literature. But at the very outset I confined the
scope of my advice to those who wish to triumph in practical affairs. I
am talking to the young men who want to succeed in business and to build
up a new nation. Criticism based on any other conception of my purpose
is a spent shaft.