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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.

Samuel Smiles

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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Business Life Observation Pursuit Secret Success
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
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
Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
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Gift Himself Hope Miracle Mom Power Success
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
Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.
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Achievement Best Kind Progress Satisfaction Slow Walk
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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Drink Industry Law Sober
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
A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful,” says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great instructor is example.
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Children Greatness Instruction
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.
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Difficult Greatness Man Service
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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Corruption People Rule
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
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
Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings; he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
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Butterfly Color Learning Service Study
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
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Best Kind Progress Slow
With will one can do anything.
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Oneself Willing
Enthusiasm, the sustaining power of all great action.
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Action Enthusiasm Greatness Power
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.
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Action Character Element Energy Force Greatness Miracle Production
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
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Character Greatness Himself Leadership
There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.
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Act Consequence Training
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
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
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Difficult Engagement Fight Men Ourselves
The highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men.
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Culture Education Man Teacher
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
Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
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Children Commitment Evil Ignorance Woman Yourself
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
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
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Aspiration Himself Man Rise

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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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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