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Character is itself a fortune.

Samuel Smiles

It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
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Achievement Decision Difficult Effort Station
The truest politeness comes of sincerity.
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One Liner Polite Sincere True
Luck whines; labor whistles.
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Labor Luck Whistle
Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
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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.
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Compare Greatness Life Limitation Man Opportunity
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.
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Business Life Observation Pursuit Secret Success
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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External Help
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
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Industry National Progress Selfish
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
Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
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Character Goodness Noble Possession Property
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
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
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.
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Affect Better Economy Greatness Industry Law Right
The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men’s hearts and purses.
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Cheap Heart Kindness Possible Purse Sacrifice
Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse–either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.
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Better Character Charge Hands Worst
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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Corruption People Rule

Character is itself a fortune.

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Character is itself a fortune.

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