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The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.

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
Great
Lessons
Men
Record
Life
Records
Biography
Like
Inspiration
Biographies
Show
Fairly
Others
Lesson
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Best
Noble

More quotes by 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.
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Those who aren't making mistakes probably aren't making anything.
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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.
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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.
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The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
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The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.
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The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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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.
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Energy of will may be defined to be the very central power of character in a man.
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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.
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Self-control is only courage under another form.
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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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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.
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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
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The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
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With will one can do anything.
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Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
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For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control.
Samuel Smiles