Quote

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.

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
Inspirational
Application
Found
Neglect
Men
Ill
Consequences
Lamenting
Generally
Reaping
Constantly
Mismanagement
Consequence
Effectiveness
Luck
Providence

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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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.
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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.
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Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
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Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
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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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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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The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
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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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Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary, gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterize the men, no less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds.
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Those who aren't making mistakes probably aren't making anything.
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Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
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I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government, But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation. King rules or barons rule: The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice. They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it.
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Character is itself a fortune.
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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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If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
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Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.
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With will one can do anything.
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There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
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Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy labor turns out at six, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
Samuel Smiles