The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
SAMUEL SMILESWhen 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.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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The truest politeness comes of sincerity.
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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.
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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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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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Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to -day as when they first passed through their authors’ minds ages ago.
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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.
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Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
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Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
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To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
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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.
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Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
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Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
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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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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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The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
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Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
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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.
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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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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.
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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
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The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
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Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
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