Samuel Smiles

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.

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.

I'm as happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!

Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.

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.

Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.

Admiration of great men, living or dead, naturally evokes imitation of them in a greater or less degree.

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.

Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action.

Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.

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.

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.

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

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

They who are the most persistent and work in the true spirit will invariably be the most successful.

Politeness goes far yet costs nothing.