Quotes by Samuel Smiles

About 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 (1859), 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

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.

Samuel Smiles

Work is one of the best educators of practical character.

Samuel Smiles

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

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

An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.

Samuel Smiles

He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.

Samuel Smiles

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

Samuel Smiles

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

Samuel Smiles

Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.

Samuel Smiles

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

Samuel Smiles

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.

Samuel Smiles

Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished.

Samuel Smiles

He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of labour.

Samuel Smiles

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Samuel Smiles

Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.

Samuel Smiles

Idleness of the mind is much worse than that of the body: wit, without employment, is a disease - the rust of the soul, a plague, a hell itself.

Samuel Smiles

Character is property. It is the noblest of possessions.

Samuel Smiles

Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Samuel Smiles

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

Author Bio

  • NameSamuel Smiles
  • DescriptionScottish author
  • BornDecember 23, 1812
  • DiedApril 16, 1904
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter