Quote

Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy labor turns out at six, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.

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
Lying
Bed
Hammer
Turns
Busy
Hammers
Wish
Luck
Competence
Would
Foundation
Pens
Labor
Wishes
Lies
Legacy
News
Lays
Postman
Bring
Six
Ringing

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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Hope... is the companion of power, and the mother of success for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
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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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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.
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The egotist is next door to a fanatic.
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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.
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Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
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The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
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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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Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
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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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Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.
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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.
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The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.
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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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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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The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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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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Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.
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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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If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
Samuel Smiles