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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.

Samuel Smiles

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
All life is a struggle…. Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself; and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat.
SAMUEL SMILES

Competition Eat Himself Life Necessary Struggle Work
Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.
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Creation Enough Finding Man Opportunity Way
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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Labor Price Value
Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
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Advantage Fall Man Opportunity Way
There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.
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Act Consequence Training
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
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Attempt Reason
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Answer Blame Terrible World
Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.
SAMUEL SMILES

Admire Character Command Genius Heart Life Respect Secure
Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
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Discipline Instruction Life Nature Practice Reality Theory Wisdom
Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.
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Greatness Nation
The 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.
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Courage Ourselves Roman Virtue Word
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
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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Business Focus Oneself
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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Bed Foundation Lying Pregnant
Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
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Cost Polite
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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Blame Blind Fortune Industry Practice
Great men are always exceptional men; and greatness itself is but comparative. Indeed, the range of most men in life is so limited that very few have the opportunity of being great.
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Compare Greatness Life Limitation Man Opportunity
Success treads on the heels of every right effort; and though it is possible to overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is sometimes done, still in any worthy pursuit it is meritorious.
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Pursuit Success Worth
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 healthy spirit of self-help created among working people would, more than any other measure, serve to raise them as a class; and this, not by pulling down others, but by levelling them up to a higher and still advancing standard of religion, intelligence, and virtue.
SAMUEL SMILES

Creation Health Intelligence People Religion Spirit Virtue Work
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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Inspirational Life Ourselves
Energy enables a man to force his way through irksome drudgery and dry details and caries him onward and upward to every station in life.
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Detail Energy Force Life Man Station
Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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Time Willing Work
The best school of discipline is home. Family life is God’s own method of training the young, and homes are very much as women make them.
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Discipline Family Home Life Training Women
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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Corruption People Rule
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Experience Learning Nature Value Wisdom

Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.

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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.

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