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Manners are the ornament of action.

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
Ornament
Ornaments
Manners
Action

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
Samuel Smiles
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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
Samuel Smiles
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Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
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 egotist is next door to a fanatic.
Samuel Smiles
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Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
Samuel Smiles
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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.'
Samuel Smiles
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Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
Samuel Smiles
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The best school of discipline is home. Family life is God's own method of training the young, and homes are very much as women make them.
Samuel Smiles
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If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
Samuel Smiles
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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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
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Enthusiasm..the sustaining power of all great action
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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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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
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Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
Samuel Smiles
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The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
Samuel Smiles
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It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action
Samuel Smiles