It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.
SAMUEL SMILESIt is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.
SAMUEL SMILESMake good thy standing place, and move the world.
SAMUEL SMILESLuck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy; labor turns out at six, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.
SAMUEL SMILESThe highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men.
SAMUEL SMILESMen must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
SAMUEL SMILESNational progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
SAMUEL SMILESThe principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
SAMUEL SMILESThose who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.
SAMUEL SMILESPersons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
SAMUEL SMILESCharacter is itself a fortune.
SAMUEL SMILESSelf-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
SAMUEL SMILESIt 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 SMILESThe 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.
SAMUEL SMILESCharacter is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.
SAMUEL SMILESThe spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.
SAMUEL SMILESCheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
SAMUEL SMILES