Samuel Smiles Quotes

Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.

One might almost fear,” writes a thoughtful woman, “seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.

Self-control is only courage under another form.

Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.

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.

A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful,” says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great instructor is example.

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.

Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.

Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.

Those who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.