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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

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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
Daily
Breathed
Character
Eyes
Depends
Exercised
Best
Moral
Parents
Parental
Might
Upon
Perhaps
Thyself
Children
Eye
Instruction
Great
Words
Health
Depend
Much
Living
Influence
Improve
Life
Two
System
Atmosphere
Summed
Doe
Parent

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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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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
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Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
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The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
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Energy of will may be defined to be the very central power of character in a man.
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Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
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The egotist is next door to a fanatic.
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The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
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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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Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.
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The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
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All life is a struggle.... Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat.
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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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