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An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.

Samuel Smiles

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Samuel Smiles
Age: 91 †
Born: 1812
Born: December 23
Died: 1904
Died: April 16
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Philosopher
Writer
Haddington
East Lothian
Possibility
Transforms
Desire
Anticipation
Often
Clarity
Reality
Desires
Things
Performing
Intense
Intention
Precursors
Capable
Precursor

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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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The great and good do no die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.
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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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Character is itself a fortune.
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
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The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflux of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.
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It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
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Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
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Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.
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The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.
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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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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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Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
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Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.
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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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Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.
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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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The egotist is next door to a fanatic.
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One might almost fear, writes a thoughtful woman, seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.
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