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The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

Samuel Smiles

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
Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.
SAMUEL SMILES

Cure Domestic Evil Politics Reform
Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Control Courage Essence Form Primary
Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
SAMUEL SMILES

Advantage Fall Man Opportunity Way
There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.
SAMUEL SMILES

Act Consequence Training
The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
SAMUEL SMILES

Distance Excellence Industrial Object Principle
Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
SAMUEL SMILES

Conscience Religious Soul Weird
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.
SAMUEL SMILES

Employment Issue Man Observation
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
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
He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.
SAMUEL SMILES

Enjoyment Labour Reward
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
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Engagement Fight Men Ourselves
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
SAMUEL SMILES

Corruption People Rule
Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight.
SAMUEL SMILES

Act Man Respect Weight Word

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

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The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

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