2 quotations linked to Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels by or associated with Ella Wheeler Wilcox, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Purpose, progress, self-conquest, rebuilding after failure, service, time, freedom and New Thought-era moral aspiration.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“Upon the wreckage of thy yesterday design the structure of to-morrow.”
Past failure is treated as material for reconstruction rather than a final verdict, making tomorrow a project that can be designed from what has already been learned.
Source note: Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels, “The Structure”; Project Gutenberg #3228. The following lines emphasize purpose, wisdom, resolve and patience, which anchors the rebuilding metaphor.
“I know the goal to high achievement lies through the dull pathway of self-conquest first”
Achievement is pictured as beginning with less glamorous inward work—self-command, small duties and repeated effort—before larger results become possible.
Source note: Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels, “Time’s Gaze,” represented 1913 edition; Project Gutenberg #3228. This is poetic moral counsel, not a universal formula for achievement.