No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
SAMUEL SMILESPersons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
More Samuel Smiles Quotes
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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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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Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
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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.
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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.
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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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Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.
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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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It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.
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Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.
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Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
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Opportunities fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
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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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Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
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Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.
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