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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.

Samuel Smiles

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
Luck whines; labor whistles.
SAMUEL SMILES

Labor Luck Whistle
Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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Life Responsibility Value
Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Goodness Noble Possession Property
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Government Level Nation People
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
SAMUEL SMILES

Affect Better Economy Greatness Industry Law Right
Self-control is only courage under another form.
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Control Courage Form
There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.
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Act Consequence Training
Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Control Courage Essence Form Primary
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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Greatness Ignorance Moral Rule Selfish Slave Vice
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Advice Failure Man Mistake Success Teaching
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
Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.
SAMUEL SMILES

Better Character Charge Hands Worst
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Business Life Observation Pursuit Secret Success

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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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