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There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.

Samuel Smiles

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
SAMUEL SMILES

Burden Hope Journey Ourselves Shadow Sun
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Creation Enough Finding Man Opportunity Way
Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.
SAMUEL SMILES

Cure Domestic Evil Politics Reform
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
SAMUEL SMILES

External Help
Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
SAMUEL SMILES

Life Responsibility Value
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
SAMUEL SMILES

Attempt Reason
Experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men; for the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal, improvement.
SAMUEL SMILES

Condition Experience Form Improvement Institution Personal Question Service
The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
SAMUEL SMILES

Distance Excellence Industrial Object Principle
The great and good do no die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Goodness Greatness Intellectual Live Oneself Voice
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
SAMUEL SMILES

Inspirational Life Ourselves
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul
Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
SAMUEL SMILES

Gift Himself Hope Miracle Mom Power Success
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Experience Learning Nature Value Wisdom
It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
SAMUEL SMILES

Achievement Decision Difficult Effort Station
Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Goodness Noble Possession Property
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

There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.

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There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.

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Popular Authors

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