Quote

Energy of will may be defined to be the very central power of character in a man.

Samuel Smiles

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Smiles
Age: 91 †
Born: 1812
Born: December 23
Died: 1904
Died: April 16
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Philosopher
Writer
Haddington
East Lothian
Men
Central
Defined
Energy
Power
Character
May

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

Image
The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Example teaches better than precept. It is the best modeler of the character of men and women. To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind him.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action
Samuel Smiles
Image
Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men's hearts and purses.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Manners are the ornament of action.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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
Image
The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.
Samuel Smiles
Image
It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the common heritage of their race and their great deeds and great thoughts are the most glorious legacies of mankind.
Samuel Smiles
Image
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. . . .
Samuel Smiles
Image
Character is itself a fortune.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary, gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterize the men, no less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds.
Samuel Smiles
Image
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
Samuel Smiles