Quote

Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.

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
Learned
Stick
Pencils
Lieu
Study
Sticks
Insects
Barn
Knew
Tiny
Studying
Owed
Often
Wings
Closely
Barns
Art
Door
Served
Butterflies
Would
Doors
Butterfly
Burnt
Painting
Canvas
Combining
Color
Colors
Pencil

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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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With will one can do anything.
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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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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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Self-control is only courage under another form.
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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.
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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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The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
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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.
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Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
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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 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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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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Manners are the ornament of action.
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.
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
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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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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.
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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 possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.
Samuel Smiles