ThursdayFeb 26, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Samuel Smiles (23 December 1812 - 16 April 1904), was a Scottish author and reformer.
Enthusiasm...the sustaining power of all great action.
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honour. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
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.
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
Cecils dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, 'The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.'
Time is of no account with great thoughts. They are as fresh today as when they first passed through their authors minds, ages ago.
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.
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
Hope ... is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for whoso hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.
No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober.
The shortest way to do many things at once is to do them one at a time.
No pains, no gains.
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.
Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.
It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
The reason so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.
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....
For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success impossible by their own cross-grained ungentleness; whilst others, it may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple patience, equanimity, and self-control.
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