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Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side.

Samuel Smiles

Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings; he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
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Butterfly Color Learning Service Study
Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
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Cost Polite
Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.
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Accomplishment Burden Glory Hard Work Honor
The best school of discipline is home. Family life is God’s own method of training the young, and homes are very much as women make them.
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Discipline Family Home Life Training Women
Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.
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Better Character Charge Hands Worst
The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
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Difficult Discover Establishment Greatness Sorrow Thinking
All life is a struggle…. Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself; and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat.
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Competition Eat Himself Life Necessary Struggle Work
Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
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Accomplishment Oneself Person Power Time
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.
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Greatness Ignorance Moral Rule Selfish Slave Vice
The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
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Difficult Greatness Man Reach Struggle Suffering Trial Work
The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
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Help Oneself
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.
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Pursuit Success Worth
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
The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
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Brave Follow Himself Man Weakness
Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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Courage Discipline Man Obedience Submission
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.
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Character Firm Person Possession Stand World
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.
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Issue Mindset Nation Opinion World
Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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Life Responsibility Value
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
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Attempt Reason
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
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.
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Culture Education Man Teacher
Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
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Bright Cheer Excellence Heart Quality
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
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Difficult Engagement Fight Men Ourselves
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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External Help
Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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Conscience Religious Soul Weird
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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Action Goodness Greatness World
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
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Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul

Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side.

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Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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