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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

Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
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Bright Cheer Excellence Heart Quality
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.
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Bright Darkness Happiness Side
The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast welldoing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful.
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Greatness Human Persistence Road Spirit Success True
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
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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Attention Industry Man Old Perseverance Possession Travel Understand Wisdom
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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Application Finding Karma Luck Man Neglect
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
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
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Focus Short Way
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
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
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Advice Failure Man Mistake Success Teaching
Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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Conscience Religious Soul Weird
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
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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Forever Health Lost Medicine Replacement Temper Wealth
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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Difficult Invention Mom Necessary School
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
Luck whines; labor whistles.
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Labor Luck Whistle
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
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Book Discover Each Other Love Man
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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External Help
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.
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Action Goodness Greatness World
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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Creation Health Intelligence People Religion Spirit Virtue 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
Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.
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Discipline Experience Goodness Sense Wisdom
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.
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Admire Character Command Genius Heart Life Respect Secure
The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
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Generous Library Possession Wealth
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.
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Competition Eat Himself Life Necessary Struggle Work
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
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
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Play Work Worst

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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