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 SMILESHope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
-
-
Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Character is itself a fortune.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.
SAMUEL SMILES -
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 -
Great men are always exceptional men; and greatness itself is but comparative. Indeed, the range of most men in life is so limited that very few have the opportunity of being great.
SAMUEL SMILES -
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
SAMUEL SMILES -
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 -
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 -
Luck whines; labor whistles.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
SAMUEL SMILES -
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.
SAMUEL SMILES -
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 -
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
SAMUEL SMILES -
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.
SAMUEL SMILES -
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 -
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
SAMUEL SMILES -
He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
SAMUEL SMILES -
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.
SAMUEL SMILES -
The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
SAMUEL SMILES -
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
SAMUEL SMILES