Success in life depends on persistent effort,—the improvement of moments more than any other one thing. A great amount of time is consumed in doing nothing, and indecision as to what we should do. If one would be successful in the future, let him make the most of the present. Two ways of wasting time, one of which is contemptible, are gossiping and lingering calls; and mere motion, travel of limbs more than Soul, frequenting the side-walk or the street-car, restless, but accomplishing little.
All successful individuals have become such by hard work, improving moments before they pass into hours, and hours that others occupy in the pursuit of amusement, else pass in sheer idleness, talking when they have nothing to say, thinking for a pastime, building air castles, floating off on the wings of sense that drop human life into the ditch of nonsense, and worse than waste its years.
"Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."
—Longfellow.
