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Character is itself a fortune.

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
Fortune
Character

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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Manners are the ornament of action.
Samuel Smiles
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When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.
Samuel Smiles
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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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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
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.
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
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Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
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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Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man can clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
Samuel Smiles
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The life of a good man is at the same time the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles