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The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.

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
Noble
People
Nobly
Ruled
Corrupt
Ignorant

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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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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Diligence, above all, is the mother of good luck.
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The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men's hearts and purses.
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Where there is a will there is a way is an old true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it and secures its achievement. To think we are able is almost to be so - to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself.
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Enthusiasm..the sustaining power of all great action
Samuel Smiles
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
Samuel Smiles
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It will generally be found that men who are constantly lamenting their ill luck are only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mismanagement, and improvidence, or want of application.
Samuel Smiles
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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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It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to scour the anchor.
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Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
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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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A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful, says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children their first great instructor is example.
Samuel Smiles
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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.'
Samuel Smiles
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It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
Samuel Smiles
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Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
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.
Samuel Smiles
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He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain all the while an exceedingly poor creature for riches are no proof whatever of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glow-worm's light reveals the grub.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing.
Samuel Smiles