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Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.

Samuel Smiles

Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Goodness Noble Possession Property
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 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
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
Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
SAMUEL SMILES

Education Human Humanity Woman
There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.
SAMUEL SMILES

Character Firm Person Possession Stand World
Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.
SAMUEL SMILES

Attention Industry Man Old Perseverance Possession Travel Understand Wisdom
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Father Knowledge Learning Life Value
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Believe Patience Poor Sacrifice Woman World
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul
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.”
SAMUEL SMILES

Business Focus Oneself
It is energy – the central element of which is will – that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Character Element Energy Force Greatness Miracle Production
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
SAMUEL SMILES

External Help
Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Egg Purpose Run
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Compare Greatness Life Limitation Man Opportunity
Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
SAMUEL SMILES

Admire Claim Rich Vulgar

Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.

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Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.

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Popular Authors

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