C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Improvement
Improvement is nature.
Real improvement is of slow growth only.
Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little, you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement: we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which could have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere.
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
Look up, and not down; look forward, and not back; look out, and not in; and lend a hand.
The improvement of the mind improves the heart and corrects the understanding.
It is necessary to try to surpass one’s self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
Slumber not in the tents of your fathers. The world is advancing. Advance with it!
Let us strive to improve ourselves, for we cannot remain stationary: one either progresses or retrogrades.
It seems as if the day was not wholly profane in which we have given heed to some natural object.
Judge of thine improvement, not by what thou speakest or writest, but by the firmness of thy mind, and the government of thy passions and affections.
To hear always, to think always, to learn always, it is thus that we live truly. He who aspires to nothing, who learns nothing, is not worthy of living.
Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve; we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.