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A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful,” says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great instructor is example.

Samuel Smiles

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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Greatness Man Reach Struggle Suffering Trial Work
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
SAMUEL SMILES

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

Better Character Charge Hands Worst
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
SAMUEL SMILES

Labor Price Value
The women of the poorer classes make sacrifices, and run risks, and bear privations, and exercise patience and kindness to a degree that the world never knows of, and would scarcely believe even if it did know.
SAMUEL SMILES

Believe Patience Poor Sacrifice Woman World
Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Instruction Life Nature Practice Reality Theory Wisdom
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

Bed Foundation Lying Pregnant
The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Lesson Life Man Noble Record
Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Egg Purpose Run
Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
SAMUEL SMILES

Bright Cheer Excellence Heart Quality
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 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 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
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

Difficult Discover Establishment Greatness Sorrow Thinking
To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
SAMUEL SMILES

Example Leaving Legacy Man
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

A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful,” says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great instructor is example.

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A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful,” says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great instructor is example.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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