Samuel Smiles Quotes

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.

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.

This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.

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.

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.

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.

The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.

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

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

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