Samuel Smiles
Samuel Smiles
Samuel Smiles, was a Scottish author and government reformer who campaigned on a Chartist platform. But he concluded that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His masterpiece, Self-Help, promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism", and it raised Smiles to celebrity status almost overnight...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth23 December 1812
The experience 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 any stock of the former
Where there is a will there is a way'.' is an old 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.
''Where there is a will there is a way.'' is an old 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.
Hope...is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.
To think we are able is almost to be so; to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself; earnest resolution has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of omnipotence.
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.
Length of years is no proper test of length of life. A man's life is to be measured by what he does in it and what he feels in it.
Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action.
Progress, 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.
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
Admiration of great men, living or dead, naturally evokes imitation of them in a greater or less degree.
I'm as happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!
Character is property. It is the noblest of possessions.