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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.

Samuel Smiles

Character is itself a fortune.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Fortune One Liner
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Issue Mindset Nation Opinion World
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Goodness Greatness Intellectual Live Oneself Voice
Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
SAMUEL SMILES

Gift Himself Hope Miracle Mom Power Success
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Bright Darkness Happiness Side
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
SAMUEL SMILES

Corruption People Rule
Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels,–teaching high living ,high thinking, and energetic action, for their own and, the world’s good.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Goodness Greatness World
With will one can do anything.
SAMUEL SMILES

Oneself Willing
Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.
SAMUEL SMILES

Accomplishment Burden Glory Hard Work Honor
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Greatness Himself Leadership
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
SAMUEL SMILES

Focus Short Way
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
Experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men; for the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal, improvement.
SAMUEL SMILES

Condition Experience Form Improvement Institution Personal Question Service
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Ignorance Moral Rule Selfish Slave Vice
Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
SAMUEL SMILES

Children Commitment Evil Ignorance Woman Yourself

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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