Samuel Smiles

Liberty is the result of free individual action,energy and independence.

— Samuel Smiles

Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.

— Samuel Smiles

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

— Samuel Smiles

Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.

— Samuel Smiles

All that is great in man comes through work; and civilization is its product.

— Samuel Smiles

Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness.

— Samuel Smiles

Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.

— Samuel Smiles

Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

— Samuel Smiles

The career of a great man remains an enduring monument of human energy. The man dies and disappears, but his thoughts and…

— Samuel Smiles

Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone…

— Samuel Smiles

The principal industrial excellence of the English people lay in their capacity of present exertion for a distant object.

— Samuel Smiles

Riches are oftener an impediment than a stimulus to action; and in many cases they are quite as much a misfortune as…

— Samuel Smiles

Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.

— Samuel Smiles

Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse--either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.

— Samuel Smiles

Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary, gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterize the men, no…

— Samuel Smiles

The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become…

— Samuel Smiles

Thus the brave and aspiring life of one man lights a flame in the minds of others of like faculties and impulse;…

— Samuel Smiles

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in…

— Samuel Smiles

The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast, well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and…

— Samuel Smiles

What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be only the out-growth…

— Samuel Smiles

Home is the first and most important school of character. It is there that every human being receives his best moral training,…

— Samuel Smiles

For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success…

— Samuel Smiles

Men cannot be raised in masses as the mountains were in he early geological states of the world. They must be dealt…

— Samuel Smiles

Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of…

— Samuel Smiles

There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.

— Samuel Smiles

The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.

— Samuel Smiles

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

— Samuel Smiles

Woman is the heart of humanity ... its grace, ornament, and solace.

— Samuel Smiles

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

— Samuel Smiles

Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.

— Samuel Smiles

Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.

— Samuel Smiles

The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.

— Samuel Smiles

Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.

— Samuel Smiles

The shortest way to do many things is to do one at a time.

— Samuel Smiles

Those who aren't making mistakes probably aren't making anything.

— Samuel Smiles

Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity.

— Samuel Smiles

Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.

— Samuel Smiles

Character is property. It is the noblest of possessions.

— Samuel Smiles

Good character is property. It is the noblest of all possessions.

— Samuel Smiles

Work is one of the best educators of practical character.

— Samuel Smiles