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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.

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
Wells
Failure
Well
Positive
Oftener
Done
Motivational
Precept
Much
Example
Congratulations
Never
Taught
Failures
Men
Mistake
Suppose
Study
Succeed
Success
Advice

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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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.
Samuel Smiles
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The path of success in business is invariably the path of common-sense. Nothwithstanding all that is said about lucky hits, the best kind of success in every man's life is not that which comes by accident. The only good time coming we are justified in hoping for is that which we are capable of making for ourselves.
Samuel Smiles
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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Those who aren't making mistakes probably aren't making anything.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
Samuel Smiles
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Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
Samuel Smiles
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For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control.
Samuel Smiles
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Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
Samuel Smiles
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The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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.
Samuel Smiles
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Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
Samuel Smiles
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Manners are the ornament of action.
Samuel Smiles