Quote

I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government, But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation. King rules or barons rule: The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice. They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it.

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
Strong
King
Barons
Keep
Rule
Conclusive
Art
Rules
Duplicity
Power
Kings
Caprice
Government
Weak
Temporal
Nothing
Violence
Frequent
Men
Quite
Seize
Law
Strongly

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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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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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
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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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The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.
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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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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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Self-control is only courage under another form.
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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage--these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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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 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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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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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.
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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
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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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It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the common heritage of their race and their great deeds and great thoughts are the most glorious legacies of mankind.
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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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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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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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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
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If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
Samuel Smiles