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Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.

Samuel Smiles

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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Human Persistence Success True Work
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
Obedience, submission, discipline, courage–these are among the characteristics which make a man.
SAMUEL SMILES

Courage Discipline Man Obedience Submission
The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
SAMUEL SMILES

Attempt Reason
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
SAMUEL SMILES

Inspirational Life Ourselves
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 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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Greatness Lesson Life Man Noble Record
Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
SAMUEL SMILES

Action Blessing Fortune Quite
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Children Greatness Instruction
The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
SAMUEL SMILES

Generous Library Possession Wealth
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
SAMUEL SMILES

Book Discover Each Other Love Man
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
SAMUEL SMILES

Industry National Progress Selfish
Experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men; for the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal, improvement.
SAMUEL SMILES

Condition Experience Form Improvement Institution Personal Question Service
The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
SAMUEL SMILES

Help Oneself
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.
SAMUEL SMILES

Believe Patience Poor Sacrifice Woman World
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
SAMUEL SMILES

Achievement Battle Difficult Honor Life Respect Struggle Success

Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.

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Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.

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