Quote

Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side.

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
Happiness
Habitual
Become
Bright
Also
Gratitude
May
Habit
Even
Side
Things
Sides
Looking
Dark

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To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
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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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The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
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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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Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
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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.
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The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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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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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.
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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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Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.
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The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
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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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Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
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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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For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
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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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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.
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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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Genius, without work, is certainly a dumb oracle, and it is unquestionably true that the men of the highest genius have invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, hard-working, and intent men -- their chief characteristic apparently consisting simply in their power of laboring more intensely and effectively than others.
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