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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

Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
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Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
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Children Image Life Mirror Present
If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
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Angel Flower Mindset Open Pleasure
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
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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Age Author Greatness Mindset Time
Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
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Admire Claim Rich Vulgar
Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.
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Father Knowledge Learning Life Value
The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
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Issue Mindset Nation Opinion World
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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Bright Darkness Happiness Side
Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
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Children Commitment Evil Ignorance Woman Yourself
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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Drink Industry Law Sober
The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
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Difficult Greatness Man Reach Struggle Suffering Trial Work
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
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Aspiration Himself Man Rise
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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Accomplishment Burden Glory Hard Work Honor
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
Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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Conscience Religious Soul Weird
Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
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Active Best Help Man Nature Necessary
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.
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Greatness Lesson Life Man Noble Record
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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Butterfly Color Learning Service Study
Men cannot be raised in masses as the mountains were in he early geological states of the world. They must be dealt with as units; for it is only by the elevation of individuals that the elevation of the masses can be effectively secured.
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Himself Man Mountain Raise Secure World
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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External Help
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
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Difficult Engagement Fight Men Ourselves
Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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Courage Discipline Man Obedience Submission
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
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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Corruption People Rule
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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Believe Patience Poor Sacrifice Woman World
The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
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Help Oneself

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.

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