Quote

Character is itself a fortune.

Samuel Smiles

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

Image
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
Image
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
Cecil's dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Obedience, submission, discipline, courage--these are among the characteristics which make a man.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Whatever is done for men takes away from the stimulus and necessity of doing things for themselves. The value of legislative as an agent in human advancement has been much over-estimated. No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident or the drunken sober.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
Genius, without work, is certainly a dumb oracle, and it is unquestionably true that the men of the highest genius have invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, hard-working, and intent men -- their chief characteristic apparently consisting simply in their power of laboring more intensely and effectively than others.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Diligence, above all, is the mother of good luck.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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