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It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action

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
Action
Miracle
Power
Elements
Sustaining
Produce
Produces
Character
Called
Ages
Great
Age
Element
Life
Success
Central
Force
Enthusiasm
Energy
Everywhere

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Manners are the ornament of action.
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The egotist is next door to a fanatic.
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Enthusiasm..the sustaining power of all great action
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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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Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.
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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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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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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.
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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.
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Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
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When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.
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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 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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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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Whatever is done for men takes away from the stimulus and necessity of doing things for themselves. The value of legislative as an agent in human advancement has been much over-estimated. No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident or the drunken sober.
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The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
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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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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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No good thing is ever lost. Nothing dies, not even life which gives up one form only to resume another. No good action, no good example dies. It lives forever in our race. While the frame moulders and disappears, the deed leaves an indelible stamp, and molds the very thought and will of future generations.
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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