The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
SAMUEL SMILESProgress 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.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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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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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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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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Character is itself a fortune.
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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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The great and good do no die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.
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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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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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Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy; labor turns out at six, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.
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Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side.
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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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Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
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Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings; he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
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