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The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

Samuel Smiles

Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
SAMUEL SMILES

Life Responsibility Value
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
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 healthy spirit of self-help created among working people would, more than any other measure, serve to raise them as a class; and this, not by pulling down others, but by levelling them up to a higher and still advancing standard of religion, intelligence, and virtue.
SAMUEL SMILES

Creation Health Intelligence People Religion Spirit Virtue Work
Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.
SAMUEL SMILES

Creation Enough Finding Man Opportunity Way
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
SAMUEL SMILES

Drink Industry Law Sober
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
SAMUEL SMILES

External Help
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
SAMUEL SMILES

Achievement Battle Difficult Honor Life Respect Struggle Success
Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Nation
It is energy – the central element of which is will – that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Character Element Energy Force Greatness Miracle Production
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
SAMUEL SMILES

Attempt Reason
Success treads on the heels of every right effort; and though it is possible to overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is sometimes done, still in any worthy pursuit it is meritorious.
SAMUEL SMILES

Pursuit Success Worth
The best school of discipline is home. Family life is God’s own method of training the young, and homes are very much as women make them.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Family Home Life Training Women
Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.
SAMUEL SMILES

Man Nation Purity Strength
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Engagement Fight Men Ourselves
Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Blessing Fortune Quite

The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

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The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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