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Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.

Samuel Smiles

Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Egg Purpose Run
It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.
SAMUEL SMILES

Employment Issue Man Observation
There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
SAMUEL SMILES

Article Character Difficult Mistake
All life is a struggle…. Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself; and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat.
SAMUEL SMILES

Competition Eat Himself Life Necessary Struggle Work
The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Influential Long Virtue
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
SAMUEL SMILES

Focus Short Way
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Greatness Man Service
With will one can do anything.
SAMUEL SMILES

Oneself Willing
Men cannot be raised in masses as the mountains were in he early geological states of the world. They must be dealt with as units; for it is only by the elevation of individuals that the elevation of the masses can be effectively secured.
SAMUEL SMILES

Himself Man Mountain Raise Secure World
Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.
SAMUEL SMILES

Age Greatness Man Mindset Nation
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
SAMUEL SMILES

Affect Better Economy Greatness Industry Law Right
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Greatness Himself Leadership
Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.
SAMUEL SMILES

Blame Blind Fortune Industry Practice
Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels,–teaching high living ,high thinking, and energetic action, for their own and, the world’s good.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Goodness Greatness World
Energy enables a man to force his way through irksome drudgery and dry details and caries him onward and upward to every station in life.
SAMUEL SMILES

Detail Energy Force Life Man Station
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
SAMUEL SMILES

Industry National Progress Selfish

Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.

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Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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