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All life is a struggle.... Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat.

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
Men
Neither
Life
Behinds
Behind
Struggle
Exerting
Shall
Exert
Fall
Necessity
Must
Lazy
Work
Competition

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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But all play and no work makes him something worse.
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The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.
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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.
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Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.
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Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
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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.
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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.
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Work is one of the best educators of practical character.
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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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Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
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To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
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It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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.
Samuel Smiles