If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
SAMUEL SMILESNational progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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Character is itself a fortune.
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The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
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He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
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It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.
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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.
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Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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Those who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.
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Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
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The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
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The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
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The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast welldoing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful.
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Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
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It is energy – the central element of which is will – that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action.
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The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men’s hearts and purses.
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The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
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Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.
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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
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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.
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Luck whines; labor whistles.
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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.
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National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
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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.
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