It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.
SAMUEL SMILESPractical 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.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
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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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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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Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.
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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
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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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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.
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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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Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.
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Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
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The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men’s hearts and purses.
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Character is itself a fortune.
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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.
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There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.
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Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
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