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The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

Samuel Smiles

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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Instruction Life Nature Practice Reality Theory Wisdom
Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
SAMUEL SMILES

Children Commitment Evil Ignorance Woman Yourself
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Achievement Decision Difficult Effort Station
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
SAMUEL SMILES

External Help
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Cheap Heart Kindness Possible Purse Sacrifice
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
SAMUEL SMILES

Best Kind Progress Slow
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
SAMUEL SMILES

Aspiration Himself Man Rise
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
SAMUEL SMILES

Play Work Worst
The very greatest things – great thoughts, discoveries, inventions – have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Discover Establishment Greatness Sorrow Thinking
Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Invention Mom Necessary School
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Family Home Life Training Women
This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.
SAMUEL SMILES

Civilization Manufacture Metal Soul
He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discover Himself Mistake
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Blame Blind Fortune Industry Practice
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Difficult Greatness Man Reach Struggle Suffering Trial Work
Men whose acts are at variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight.
SAMUEL SMILES

Act Man Respect Weight Word

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

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The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

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