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Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.

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

Better Character Charge Hands Worst
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
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Discover Each Other Love Man
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
SAMUEL SMILES

Aspiration Himself Man Rise
It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
SAMUEL SMILES

Achievement Decision Difficult Effort Station
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
SAMUEL SMILES

Burden Hope Journey Ourselves Shadow Sun
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
SAMUEL SMILES

Labor Price Value
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
SAMUEL SMILES

Industry National Progress Selfish
Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Blessing Fortune Quite
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Issue Mindset Nation Opinion World
Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
SAMUEL SMILES

Active Best Help Man Nature Necessary
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Goodness Greatness World
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
SAMUEL SMILES

Inspirational Life Ourselves
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
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Competition Eat Himself Life Necessary Struggle Work

Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.

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Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.

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Popular Authors

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