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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.

Samuel Smiles

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

Time Willing Work
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
Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
SAMUEL SMILES

Goodness Move Place Stand World
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul
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 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
Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Egg Purpose Run
Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Invention Mom Necessary School
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Greatness Himself Leadership
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
Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings; he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
SAMUEL SMILES

Butterfly Color Learning Service Study
Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Education Practice Work
Those who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.
SAMUEL SMILES

Failure Inspirational Mistake
Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.
SAMUEL SMILES

Accomplishment Burden Glory Hard Work Honor
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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