Samuel Smiles Quotes

114 Sourced Quotes

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

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

Samuel Smiles
Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.

Samuel Smiles
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
Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.

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

Samuel Smiles
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Samuel Smiles
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

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

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 of our own perverted life; and though we may endeavor to cut them down and extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of human life and character are radically improved.

Samuel Smiles
The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.

Samuel Smiles
There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.

Samuel Smiles
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.

Samuel Smiles
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
He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain all the while an exceedingly poor creature; for riches are no proof whatever of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glow-worm's light reveals the grub.

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

Samuel Smiles
If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.

Samuel Smiles
Though an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him; but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture.

Samuel Smiles
Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.

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

Samuel Smiles
Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.

Samuel Smiles
The life of a good man is at the same time the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice.

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

Samuel Smiles
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.

Samuel Smiles
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.

Samuel Smiles
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.

Samuel Smiles
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.

Samuel Smiles
The possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.

Samuel Smiles
Great men are always exceptional men; and greatness itself is but comparative. Indeed, the range of most men in life is so limited that very few have the opportunity of being great.

Samuel Smiles