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Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.

Samuel Smiles

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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Issue Mindset Nation Opinion World
The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
SAMUEL SMILES

Brave Follow Himself Man Weakness
Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Instruction Life Nature Practice Reality Theory Wisdom
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
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Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
Those who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.
SAMUEL SMILES

Failure Inspirational Mistake
The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
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Generous Library Possession Wealth
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
The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.
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Best Influential Long Virtue
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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Business Life Observation Pursuit Secret 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
Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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Life Responsibility Value
Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
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Admire Claim Rich Vulgar
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Better Himself Leaving Man Teaching
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
The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflux of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.
SAMUEL SMILES

Government Level Nation People
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
SAMUEL SMILES

Labor Price Value

Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.

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Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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