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Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.

Samuel Smiles

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
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discover Failure Finding Learning Mistake Wisdom
Success treads on the heels of every right effort; and though it is possible to overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is sometimes done, still in any worthy pursuit it is meritorious.
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Pursuit Success Worth
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.
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Difficult Greatness Man Service
To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
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Example Leaving Legacy Man
He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.
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Enjoyment Labour Reward
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
Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.
SAMUEL SMILES

Discipline Experience Goodness Sense Wisdom
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
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
Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.
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Admire Claim Rich Vulgar
Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.
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Action Egg Purpose Run
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
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Focus Short Way
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
The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
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Help Oneself
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
It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.
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Employment Issue Man Observation
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
If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
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Angel Flower Mindset Open Pleasure
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
With will one can do anything.
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Oneself Willing
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
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
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
He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
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Discover Himself Mistake
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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Drink Industry Law Sober
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

Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.

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Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.

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