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 SMILESGreat men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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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 women of the poorer classes make sacrifices, and run risks, and bear privations, and exercise patience and kindness to a degree that the world never knows of, and would scarcely believe even if it did know.
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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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Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.
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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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Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
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Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
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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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Self-control is only courage under another form.
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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 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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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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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.
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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
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Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.
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When 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.
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The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.
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Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.
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This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
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The highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men.
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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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Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.
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