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Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.

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
Property
Character
Good
Noblest
Possessions
Possession

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
Samuel Smiles
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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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Manners are the ornament of action.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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The highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men.
Samuel Smiles
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Self-control is only courage under another form. It may also be regarded as the primary essence of character.
Samuel Smiles
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The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
Samuel Smiles
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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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 tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
Samuel Smiles
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Woman is the heart of humanity ... its grace, ornament, and solace.
Samuel Smiles
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Opportunities ... fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
Samuel Smiles
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Where there is a will there is a way is an old true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it and secures its achievement. To think we are able is almost to be so - to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself.
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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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
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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles