Experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men; for the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal, improvement.

— Samuel Smiles

Samuel Smiles Quotes

If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.

— Samuel Smiles

The life of a good man is at the same time the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice.

— Samuel Smiles

Those who aren’t making mistakes probably aren’t making anything.

— Samuel Smiles

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.

— Samuel Smiles

Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.

— Samuel Smiles

Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book.

— Samuel Smiles

There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences.

— Samuel Smiles

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

— Samuel Smiles

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

— Samuel Smiles

All that is great in man comes through work; and civilization is its product.

— Samuel Smiles

There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.

— Samuel Smiles

All experiences of life seems to prove that the impediments thrown in the way of the human advancement may for the most part be overcome by steady good conduct, honest zeal, activity, perseverance and above all, by a determined resolution to surmount.

— Samuel Smiles

The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast, well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful; success treads on the heels of every right effort.

— Samuel Smiles

Character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse – either being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other.

— Samuel Smiles

Indeed, we can always better understand and appreciate a man’s real character by the manner in which he conducts himself towards those who are the most nearly related to him, and by his transaction of the seemingly commonplace details of daily duty, than by his public exhibition of himself as an author, an orator, or a statesman.

— Samuel Smiles

Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of brain-power, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life. Men of genius stand to society in the relation of its intellect, as men of character of its conscience; and while the former are admired, the latter are followed.

— Samuel Smiles

Simple honesty of purpose in a man goes a long way in life, if founded on a just estimate of himself and a steady obedience to the rule he knows and feels to be right.

— Samuel Smiles

A man may be accomplished in art, literature, and science, and yet, in honesty, virtue, truthfulness, and the spirit of duty, be entitled to take rank after many a poor and illiterate peasant.

— Samuel Smiles

Truthfulness is at the foundation of all personal excellence.

— Samuel Smiles

The ignorant man passes through the world dead to all pleasures, save those of the senses.

— Samuel Smiles
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