---
title: 'Samuel Davies said “Leave the world wiser and better than you found it.”'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2021-10-04
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2021-samuel-davies-said-leave-the-world-wiser-and-better-than-you-found-it
---

# Samuel Davies said “Leave the world wiser and better than you found it.”

“Whatever, I say, be your Place, permit me, my dear Youth, to inculcate upon you this important instruction, IMBIBE AND CHERISH A PUBLIC SPIRIT. Serve your Generation. Live not for yourselves, but the Publick. Be the Servants of the Church; the servants of your Country; the Servants of all. Extend the Arms of your Benevolence to embrace your Friends, your Neighbors, your Country, your Nation, the whole Race of mankind, even your Enemies. Let it be the vigorous unremitted Effort of your whole Life, to leave the World wiser and better than you found it at your Entrance.”

— from [Samuel Davies](/authors/samuel-davies), *Religion and Public Spirit: A Valedictory Address to the Senior Class, Delivered in Nassau-Hall, September 21, 1760* (1762), pp. 6-7.