Quote

Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.

Samuel Smiles

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Smiles
Age: 91 †
Born: 1812
Born: December 23
Died: 1904
Died: April 16
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Philosopher
Writer
Haddington
East Lothian
Industry
Wisdom
Attention
Travelling
Understanding
Perseverance
Individual
Observation
Become
Possession
Men
Road
Journey

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Manners are the ornament of action.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
Samuel Smiles
Image
To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Men cannot be raised in masses as the mountains were in he early geological states of the world. They must be dealt with as units for it is only by the elevation of individuals that the elevation of the masses can be effectively secured.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels,--teaching high living ,high thinking, and energetic action, for their own and, the world's good.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The egotist is next door to a fanatic.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
Samuel Smiles
Image
It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the common heritage of their race and their great deeds and great thoughts are the most glorious legacies of mankind.
Samuel Smiles
Image
A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect, but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her sympathies, rather than by her knowledge.
Samuel Smiles
Image
So much does the moral health depend upon the moral atmosphere that is breathed, and so great is the influence daily exercised by parents over their children by living a life before their eyes, that perhaps the best system of parental instruction might be summed up in these two words: 'Improve thyself.'
Samuel Smiles
Image
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles