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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.

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
Little
Life
Consecrated
Value
Unless
Duty
Values
Littles

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Character is itself a fortune.
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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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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
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Success treads on the heels of every right effort and though it is possible to overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is sometimes done, still in any worthy pursuit it is meritorious.
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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage--these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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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.
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The healthy spirit of self-help created among working people would, more than any other measure, serve to raise them as a class and this, not by pulling down others, but by levelling them up to a higher and still advancing standard of religion, intelligence, and virtue.
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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.
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It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the common heritage of their race and their great deeds and great thoughts are the most glorious legacies of mankind.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Opportunities ... fall in the way of every man who is resolved to take advantage of them.
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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.'
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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.
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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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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
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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.
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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.
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