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

Samuel Smiles

Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after life the images first presented to it.
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Children Image Life Mirror Present
Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.
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Greatness Nation
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
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Best Kind Progress Slow
The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
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Greatness Ignorance Moral Rule Selfish Slave Vice
Those who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.
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Failure Inspirational Mistake
Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
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Cost Polite
Self-control is only courage under another form.
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Control Courage Form
Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.
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Age Greatness Man Mindset Nation
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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Inspirational Life Ourselves
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
Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
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Education Human Humanity Woman
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 noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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Corruption People Rule
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.
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Believe Patience Poor Sacrifice Woman World
There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
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Article Character Difficult Mistake
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
Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.
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Discipline Experience Goodness Sense Wisdom
Luck whines; labor whistles.
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Labor Luck Whistle
Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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Life Responsibility Value
The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast, well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful; success treads on the heels of every right effort.
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Greatness Human Persistence Success True Work
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
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.
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Difficult Greatness Man Service
When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.
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Answer Blame Terrible World
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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Action Blessing Fortune Quite
The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.
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Greatness Lesson Life Man Noble Record
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
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.
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Discipline Instruction Life Nature Practice Reality Theory Wisdom

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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Popular Authors

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