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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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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.
Samuel Smiles
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With will one can do anything.
Samuel Smiles
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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage--these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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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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.
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
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Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.
Samuel Smiles
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The great and good do no die even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which one still listens.
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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The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
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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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. . . .
Samuel Smiles
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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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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Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
Samuel Smiles