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

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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.
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Self-control is only courage under another form.
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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 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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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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The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
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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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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men's hearts and purses.
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Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
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He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain all the while an exceedingly poor creature for riches are no proof whatever of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glow-worm's light reveals the grub.
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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 egotist is next door to a fanatic.
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It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune. . . .
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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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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
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