Samuel Smiles Quotes

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.

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

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.”

The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.

Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.

The women of the poorer classes make sacrifices, and run risks, and bear privations, and exercise patience and kindness to a degree that the world never knows of, and would scarcely believe even if it did know.

Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.

The truest politeness comes of sincerity.

Luck whines; labor whistles.

He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.