230 Quotes by Samuel Smiles

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

Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.

Work is one of the best educators of practical character.

Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.

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

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

I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government, But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation. King rules or barons rule: The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice. They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it.

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.

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