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The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.

Samuel Smiles

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
Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.
SAMUEL SMILES

Compromise Endurance Government Marriage Patience Repair
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
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Affect Better Economy Greatness Industry Law Right
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
The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Greatness Man Reach Struggle Suffering Trial Work
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Human Persistence Road Spirit Success True
Cecil’s dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.”
SAMUEL SMILES

Business Focus Oneself
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Cheap Heart Kindness Possible Purse Sacrifice
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
SAMUEL SMILES

Inspirational Life Ourselves
Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.
SAMUEL SMILES

Admire Character Command Genius Heart Life Respect Secure
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
The highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men.
SAMUEL SMILES

Culture Education Man Teacher
Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight.
SAMUEL SMILES

Act Man Respect Weight Word
The truest politeness comes of sincerity.
SAMUEL SMILES

One Liner Polite Sincere True
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

The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.

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The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.

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