Quote

Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.

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
Powers
Accomplish
Persons
Thing
Comparatively
Much
Moderate
Time
Moderates
Wholly
Apply

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

Image
Self-control is only courage under another form.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
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
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
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
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast welldoing and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful.
Samuel Smiles
Image
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Diligence, above all, is the mother of good luck.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
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
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
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
With will one can do anything.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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