Quote

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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Samuel Smiles
Age: 91 †
Born: 1812
Born: December 23
Died: 1904
Died: April 16
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Philosopher
Writer
Haddington
East Lothian
Means
However
Reforms
Action
Habit
Industrious
Better
Economy
Sober
Self
Rights
Idle
Mean
Law
Denial
Provident
Make
Greater
Habits
Stringent
Rather
Reform
Effected
Individual
Laws
Drunken

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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If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
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Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.
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It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
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Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.
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Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.
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Energy enables a man to force his way through irksome drudgery and dry details and caries him onward and upward to every station in life.
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To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.
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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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The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
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With will one can do anything.
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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.
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Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy labor turns out at six, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.
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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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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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The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
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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.
Samuel Smiles
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Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
Samuel Smiles
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For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control.
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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