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One might almost fear,” writes a thoughtful woman, “seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.

Samuel Smiles

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

Children Image Life Mirror Present
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
Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
SAMUEL SMILES

Admire Claim Rich Vulgar
Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
SAMUEL SMILES

Time Willing Work
Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
SAMUEL SMILES

Advantage Fall Man Opportunity Way
Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
SAMUEL SMILES

Education Human Humanity Woman
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Application Finding Karma Luck Man Neglect
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Government Level Nation People
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Father Knowledge Learning Life Value
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
The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
SAMUEL SMILES

Distance Excellence Industrial Object Principle
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
The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
SAMUEL SMILES

Generous Library Possession Wealth

One might almost fear,” writes a thoughtful woman, “seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.

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One might almost fear,” writes a thoughtful woman, “seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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