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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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Samuel Smiles
Age: 91 †
Born: 1812
Born: December 23
Died: 1904
Died: April 16
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Philosopher
Writer
Haddington
East Lothian
Though
Overestimate
Success
Heels
Stills
Extent
Still
Pursuit
Done
Worthy
Right
Effort
Sometimes
Almost
Meritorious
Every
Possible
Treads

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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Diligence, above all, is the mother of good luck.
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Nothing is more common than energy in money-making, quite independent of any higher object than its accumulation. A man who devotes himself to this pursuit, body and soul, can scarcely fail to become rich. Very little brains will do spend less than you earn add guinea to guinea scrape and save and the pile of gold will gradually rise.
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For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control.
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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Example teaches better than precept. It is the best modeler of the character of men and women. To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind him.
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The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
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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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The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
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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.
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Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
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Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
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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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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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The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Opportunities ... fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
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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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Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
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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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The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
Samuel Smiles