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 SMILESLife is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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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.
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Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
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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.
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Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
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Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight.
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Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
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Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
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Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to -day as when they first passed through their authors’ minds ages ago.
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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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The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.
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Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.
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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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Energy enables a man to force his way through irksome drudgery and dry details and caries him onward and upward to every station in life.
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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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