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Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

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
Helping
Without
Invigorates
Invariably
Effects
Within
Help
Often

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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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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage--these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.
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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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I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government, But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation. King rules or barons rule: The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice. They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it.
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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 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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Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.
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When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides.
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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.
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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.
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The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast welldoing and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful.
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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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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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The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
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If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
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The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflux of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.
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The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
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Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.
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