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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.

Samuel Smiles

Luck whines; labor whistles.
SAMUEL SMILES

Labor Luck Whistle
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.
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Achievement Decision Difficult Effort Station
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.
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Discipline Instruction Life Nature Practice Reality Theory Wisdom
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
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Aspiration Himself Man Rise
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
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Play Work Worst
Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight.
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Act Man Respect Weight Word
Cecil’s dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.”
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Business Focus Oneself
The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
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Help Oneself
Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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Time Willing Work
The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Ignorance Moral Rule Selfish Slave Vice
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
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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Corruption People Rule
He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.
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Enjoyment Labour Reward
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.
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Answer Blame Terrible 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.
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Action Blessing Fortune Quite
Men 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.
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Active Best Help Man Nature Necessary
Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.
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Creation Enough Finding Man Opportunity Way
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
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Book Discover Each Other Love Man
Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.
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Greatness Nation
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
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
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Attempt Reason
There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.
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Act Consequence Training
Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
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Forever Health Lost Medicine Replacement Temper Wealth
There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
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Article Character Difficult Mistake
Woman is the heart of humanity, its grace, ornament, and solace.
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Grace Heart Humanity Solace Woman
Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.
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Cure Domestic Evil Politics Reform
Men cannot be raised in masses as the mountains were in he early geological states of the world. They must be dealt with as units; for it is only by the elevation of individuals that the elevation of the masses can be effectively secured.
SAMUEL SMILES

Himself Man Mountain Raise Secure World

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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