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

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
Character
May
Men
Central
Defined
Energy
Power

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Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.
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No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
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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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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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With will one can do anything.
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Obedience, submission, discipline, courage--these are among the characteristics which make a man.
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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 brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.
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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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There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken.
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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.
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So much does the moral health depend upon the moral atmosphere that is breathed, and so great is the influence daily exercised by parents over their children by living a life before their eyes, that perhaps the best system of parental instruction might be summed up in these two words: 'Improve thyself.'
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The path of success in business is invariably the path of common-sense. Nothwithstanding all that is said about lucky hits, the best kind of success in every man's life is not that which comes by accident. The only good time coming we are justified in hoping for is that which we are capable of making for ourselves.
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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.
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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.
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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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Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely studying butterflies wings he would often say that no one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas.
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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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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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