black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.

Samuel Smiles

Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.
SAMUEL SMILES

Compromise Endurance Government Marriage Patience Repair
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
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul
Success treads on the heels of every right effort; and though it is possible to overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is sometimes done, still in any worthy pursuit it is meritorious.
SAMUEL SMILES

Pursuit Success Worth
It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.
SAMUEL SMILES

Application Finding Karma Luck Man Neglect
To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
SAMUEL SMILES

Example Leaving Legacy Man
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
SAMUEL SMILES

Affect Better Economy Greatness Industry Law Right
Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.
SAMUEL SMILES

Courage Discipline Man Obedience Submission
Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.
SAMUEL SMILES

Cure Domestic Evil Politics Reform
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
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
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Discover Each Other Love Man
The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
SAMUEL SMILES

Distance Excellence Industrial Object Principle
Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
SAMUEL SMILES

Children Image Life Mirror Present
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
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

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Samuel Smiles Quotes