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To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.

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
Richest
Lofty
Behinds
Behind
Leave
Example
Men
Bequest

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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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Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
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Cecil's dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
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Self-control is only courage under another form.
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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.'
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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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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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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.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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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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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.
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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.
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Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
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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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Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
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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.
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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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