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

Samuel Smiles

The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Ignorance Moral Rule Selfish Slave Vice
Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
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Action Blessing Fortune Quite
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.
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Book Experience Learning Nature Value Wisdom
He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.
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Enjoyment Labour Reward
The great and good do no die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.
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Book Goodness Greatness Intellectual Live Oneself Voice
Character is itself a fortune.
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Character Fortune One Liner
Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
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Children Image Life Mirror Present
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.
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Discipline Family Home Life Training Women
Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.
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Father Knowledge Learning Life Value
A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful,” says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great instructor is example.
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Children Greatness Instruction
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.
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Active Best Help Man Nature Necessary
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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External Help
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
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Attempt Reason
With will one can do anything.
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Oneself Willing
Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
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Bright Cheer Excellence Heart Quality
The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men’s hearts and purses.
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Cheap Heart Kindness Possible Purse Sacrifice

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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