Quote

The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is, in a physical sense, what the other is in a moral the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves.

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
Moral
Romans
Word
Rightly
Sense
Employed
Victory
Physical
Highest
Courage
Virtus
Virtue
Designate

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The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
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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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Those who aren't making mistakes probably aren't making anything.
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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.
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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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Hope... is the companion of power, and the mother of success for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
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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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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.
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It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune. . . .
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There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
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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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Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.
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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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The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
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Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
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For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.
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Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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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.
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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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