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We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Samuel Smiles

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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Age Author Greatness Mindset Time
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Lesson Life Man Noble Record
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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Advice Failure Man Mistake Success Teaching
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
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Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul
Practical 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.
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Discipline Instruction Life Nature Practice Reality Theory 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.
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Competition Eat Himself Life Necessary Struggle Work
Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight.
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Act Man Respect Weight Word
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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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
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
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Character Greatness Himself Leadership
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
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Aspiration Himself Man Rise
The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
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Distance Excellence Industrial Object Principle
The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast welldoing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful.
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Greatness Human Persistence Road Spirit Success True
Example teaches better than precept. It is the best modeler of the character of men and women. To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind him.
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Best Better Himself Leaving Man Teaching
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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Gift Himself Hope Miracle Mom Power Success
Luck whines; labor whistles.
SAMUEL SMILES

Labor Luck Whistle

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

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We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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