Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.
SAMUEL SMILESPurposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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The truest politeness comes of sincerity.
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It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
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Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
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Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
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Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
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It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.
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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.
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Woman is the heart of humanity, its grace, ornament, and solace.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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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.
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Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
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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.
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Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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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.
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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.
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If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
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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.
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Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.
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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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Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings; he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
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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.
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