Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
SAMUEL SMILESThe Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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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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Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.
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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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Cecil’s dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.”
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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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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.
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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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This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
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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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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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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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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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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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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
SAMUEL SMILES






