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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
Noblest
Possessions
Possession
Property
Character
Good

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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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. . . .
Samuel Smiles
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One might almost fear, writes a thoughtful woman, seeing how the women of to-day are lightly stirred up to run after some new fashion or faith, that heaven is not so near to them as it was to their mothers and grandmothers.
Samuel Smiles
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
Samuel Smiles
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Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
Samuel Smiles
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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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Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
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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Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
Samuel Smiles
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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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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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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Character is itself a fortune.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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
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The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
Samuel Smiles
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He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
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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Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.
Samuel Smiles
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Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
Samuel Smiles