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Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.

Samuel Smiles

The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
SAMUEL SMILES

Help Oneself
The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.
SAMUEL SMILES

Courage Ourselves Roman Virtue Word
Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
SAMUEL SMILES

Gift Himself Hope Miracle Mom Power Success
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Engagement Fight Men Ourselves
Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Control Courage Essence Form Primary
Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Education Practice Work
Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
SAMUEL SMILES

Forever Health Lost Medicine Replacement Temper Wealth
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
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
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Focus Short Way
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
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Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Detail Energy Force Life Man Station
The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
SAMUEL SMILES

Generous Library Possession Wealth
Experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men; for the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal, improvement.
SAMUEL SMILES

Condition Experience Form Improvement Institution Personal Question Service
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

Blame Blind Fortune Industry Practice
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
One might almost fear,” writes a thoughtful woman, “seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.
SAMUEL SMILES

Faith Fashion Grandmother Mother

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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Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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