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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

Samuel Smiles

Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
SAMUEL SMILES

Children Image Life Mirror Present
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
There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Firm Person Possession Stand World
If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
SAMUEL SMILES

Angel Flower Mindset Open Pleasure
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Experience Learning Nature Value Wisdom
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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Corruption People Rule
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
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Best Kind Progress Slow
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
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Believe Patience Poor Sacrifice Woman World
Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
SAMUEL SMILES

Active Best Help Man Nature Necessary
Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Control Courage Essence Form Primary
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

Cure Domestic Evil Politics Reform
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.
SAMUEL SMILES

Business Life Observation Pursuit Secret Success
He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.
SAMUEL SMILES

Enjoyment Labour Reward
Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.
SAMUEL SMILES

Better Character Charge Hands Worst
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
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
Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
SAMUEL SMILES

Advantage Fall Man Opportunity Way
Example teaches better than precept. It is the best modeler of the character of men and women. To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind him.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Better Himself Leaving Man Teaching
Woman is the heart of humanity, its grace, ornament, and solace.
SAMUEL SMILES

Grace Heart Humanity Solace Woman
Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
SAMUEL SMILES

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

Life Responsibility Value
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
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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Difficult Discover Establishment Greatness Sorrow Thinking
Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
SAMUEL SMILES

Accomplishment Oneself Person Power Time
Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Education Practice Work

Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

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