Quotes from Samuel Smiles

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.

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

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

The very greatest things -- great thoughts, discoveries, inventions -- have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.

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

He who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.

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.

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.

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

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.

I'm as happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!

The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.

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.

Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.

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.

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

Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.

Enthusiasm...the sustaining power of all great action.

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

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.

The duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbors.

The experience to be gathered from books, Though often valuable, is but of the nature of learning Whereas the experience gained from actual life, Is of the nature of wisdom And a small store of the latter Is worth vastly more than a stock of the former.