The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
SAMUEL SMILESCecil’s dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.”
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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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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Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
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There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.
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The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.
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National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
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Men cannot be raised in masses as the mountains were in he early geological states of the world. They must be dealt with as units; for it is only by the elevation of individuals that the elevation of the masses can be effectively secured.
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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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Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
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When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
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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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Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
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To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
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With will one can do anything.
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Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
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The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
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We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
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Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
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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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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.
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The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.
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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.
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