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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

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
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 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 SMILES

Cheap Heart Kindness Possible Purse Sacrifice
Example teaches better than precept. It is the best modeler of the character of men and women. To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind him.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Better Himself Leaving Man Teaching
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Family Home Life Training Women
Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
SAMUEL SMILES

Advantage Fall Man Opportunity Way
The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflux of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.
SAMUEL SMILES

Government Level Nation People
Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
SAMUEL SMILES

Cost Polite
Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.
SAMUEL SMILES

Achievement Best Kind Progress Satisfaction Slow Walk
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
Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Experience Goodness Sense Wisdom
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Firm Person Possession Stand World
Those who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.
SAMUEL SMILES

Failure Inspirational Mistake
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discover Failure Finding Learning Mistake Wisdom
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

Achievement Battle Difficult Honor Life Respect Struggle Success
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Answer Blame Terrible World

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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