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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

Samuel Smiles

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
Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
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Advantage Fall Man Opportunity Way
Luck whines; labor whistles.
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Labor Luck Whistle
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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Industry National Progress Selfish
All life is a struggle…. Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself; and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat.
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Competition Eat Himself Life Necessary Struggle Work
Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.
SAMUEL SMILES

Admire Character Command Genius Heart Life Respect Secure
To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
SAMUEL SMILES

Example Leaving Legacy Man
Energy enables a man to force his way through irksome drudgery and dry details and caries him onward and upward to every station in life.
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Detail Energy Force Life Man Station
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
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Burden Hope Journey Ourselves Shadow Sun
Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
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Action Blessing Fortune Quite
The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast, well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful; success treads on the heels of every right effort.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Human Persistence Success True Work
Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels,–teaching high living ,high thinking, and energetic action, for their own and, the world’s good.
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Action Goodness Greatness World
Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
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Character Control Courage Essence Form Primary
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
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Character Greatness Himself Leadership
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.
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Believe Patience Poor Sacrifice Woman World
Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
SAMUEL SMILES

Bright Cheer Excellence Heart Quality

Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.

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