The best school of discipline is home—family life is God’s own method of training the young; and homes are very much what women make them.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Education
He who recognizes no higher logic than that of the shilling may become a very rich man, and yet remain a very poor creature, for riches are no proof of moral worth, and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glowworm’s light reveals the grub.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Riches
Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Wisdom
To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial; and able to bear the wear and tear of actual life. Cloistered virtues do not count for much.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Character
Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man may clothe himself…the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired. One of Pythagoras’ wisest maxims is that in which he enjoins the pupil to “reverence himself.”
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Self-respect
Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Work
Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Necessity
Give me a standing place, said Archimedes, “and I will move the world”—Goethe has changed the postulate into the precept. “Make good thy standing place, and move the world.”
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Self-reliance
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Hope
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.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Difficulty, Difficulties
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
Topics: Success, Character
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Adversity
Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing… they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Responsibility
Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Vision, Prophecy
Where there is a will there is a way, is an old and true Saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement. To think we are able, is almost to be so – to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Achievement, Success & Failure
The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Growth, Self-reliance
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.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Persistence, Perseverance
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
Topics: Inspiration, Difficulties, Difficulty
The first step in debt is like the first step in falsehood, involving the necessity of going on in the same course, debt following debt, as lie follows lie.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Debt
Charles II hearing Vossius; a free thinker, repeating some incredible stories of the Chinese, turned to those about him and said, “This learned divine is a very strange man; he believes everything but the Bible.”
—Samuel Smiles
It has been said of dogmatism, that it is only puppyism come to its full growth, and certainly the worst form this quality can assume is that of opinionativeness and arrogance.
—Samuel Smiles
The duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Cooperation, Help
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
Topics: Thought
Snobs in high places assume great airs, and are pretentious in all they do, and the higher their elevation, the more conspicuous is the incongruity of their position.
—Samuel Smiles
To think we are able, is almost to be so; to determine on attainment, is frequently attainment itself.—Earnest resolution has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of omnipotence.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Energy, Ability
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
Topics: Opportunity
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
Topics: Mistake, Mistakes, Business, Failure, Wisdom, Discovery
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.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Success, Failure
Good character is human nature in its best form.—It is moral order embodied in the individual.—Men of character are not only the conscience of society, but in every well governed state they are its best motive power; for it is moral qualities which, in the main, rule the world.
—Samuel Smiles
Topics: Character
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
Topics: Wisdom
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