Quote

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.

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
Life
Bits
Sown
World
Issues
Nursery
Opinion
Gathered
Public
Afterwards
Nations
Forth
Become
Issue
Children
Private
Nurseries
Mind
Minds
Tiniest

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
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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.
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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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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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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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Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
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Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels,--teaching high living ,high thinking, and energetic action, for their own and, the world's good.
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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage--these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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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 duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.
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An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.
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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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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
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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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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
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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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The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
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