Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
SAMUEL SMILESNational progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.
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Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy; labor turns out at six, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.
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Great men are always exceptional men; and greatness itself is but comparative. Indeed, the range of most men in life is so limited that very few have the opportunity of being great.
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast welldoing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
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The truest politeness comes of sincerity.
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He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
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Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to -day as when they first passed through their authors’ minds ages ago.
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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.
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The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflux of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.
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Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight.
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It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
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The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
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The women of the poorer classes make sacrifices, and run risks, and bear privations, and exercise patience and kindness to a degree that the world never knows of, and would scarcely believe even if it did know.
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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.
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Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.
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The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
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There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
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Experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men; for the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal, improvement.
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With will one can do anything.
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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
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It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.
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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.
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Character is itself a fortune.
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