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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.

Samuel Smiles

He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discover Himself Mistake
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
SAMUEL SMILES

Industry National Progress Selfish
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
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
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Cheap Heart Kindness Possible Purse Sacrifice
There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Firm Person Possession Stand World
Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Blessing Fortune Quite
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
SAMUEL SMILES

Advice Failure Man Mistake Success Teaching
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
Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to -day as when they first passed through their authors’ minds ages ago.
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Age Author Greatness Mindset Time
Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
SAMUEL SMILES

Bright Cheer Excellence Heart Quality
When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.
SAMUEL SMILES

Answer Blame Terrible World
The 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 SMILES

Culture Education Man Teacher
Luck 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 SMILES

Bed Foundation Lying Pregnant
Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
SAMUEL SMILES

Children Commitment Evil Ignorance Woman Yourself
Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.
SAMUEL SMILES

Man Nation Purity Strength

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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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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