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Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.

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
Glory
Also
May
Without
Chastisement
Nothing
Honour
Labour
Accomplished
Burden

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

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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.
Samuel Smiles
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The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy and self-denial by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
Samuel Smiles
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Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.
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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The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
Samuel Smiles
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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
Samuel Smiles
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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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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.
Samuel Smiles
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A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect, but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her sympathies, rather than by her knowledge.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Diligence, above all, is the mother of good luck.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles