1858–1907 · American Ethical Culture lecturer & founder of the Ethical Society of St. Louis
Walter Lorenzo Sheldon (1858–1907) was a Princeton-trained philosopher who studied under Felix Adler and, in 1886, founded the Ethical Society of St. Louis, leading it until his death. His weekly ethical addresses were collected in pamphlet series such as Ethical Addresses. It was in one of these — an 1897 essay on an “ethical creed” — that this aphorism about self-improvement first appeared in its now-familiar form.