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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.

Samuel Smiles

Woman is the heart of humanity, its grace, ornament, and solace.
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Grace Heart Humanity Solace Woman
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
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
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 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.
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Creation Health Intelligence People Religion Spirit Virtue Work
Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
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Admire Claim Rich Vulgar
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.
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Employment Issue Man Observation
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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Answer Blame Terrible World
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
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Advice Failure Man Mistake Success Teaching
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
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Aspiration Himself Man Rise
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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External Help
The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
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Issue Mindset Nation Opinion World
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
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
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Best Kind Progress Slow
Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
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Action Egg Purpose Run
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

No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.

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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.

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Popular Authors

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