Top 120 Samuel Smiles Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.”

— Samuel Smiles

52. “Persons with comparatively moderate powers will accomplish much, if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one thing at a time.”

— Samuel Smiles

53. “Success treads on the heels of every right effort; and though it is possible to overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is sometimes done, still in any worthy pursuit it is meritorious.”

— Samuel Smiles

54. “The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.”

— Samuel Smiles

55. “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

56. “Though an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him; but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture.”

— Samuel Smiles

57. “Luck whines; labor whistles.”

— Samuel Smiles

58. “Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.”

— Samuel Smiles

59. “Whatever is done for men takes away from the stimulus and necessity of doing things for themselves. The value of legislative as an agent in human advancement has been much over-estimated. No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident or the drunken sober.”

— Samuel Smiles

60. “If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.”

— Samuel Smiles

61. “Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.”

— Samuel Smiles

62. “To set a lofty example is the richest bequest a man can leave behind.”

— Samuel Smiles

63. “The career of a great man remains an enduring monument of human energy. The man dies and disappears, but his thoughts and acts survive and leave an indelible stamp upon his race.”

— Samuel Smiles

64. “The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.”

— Samuel Smiles

65. “The truest politeness comes of sincerity.”

— Samuel Smiles

66. “Energy of will may be defined to be the very central power of character in a man.”

— Samuel Smiles

67. “The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.”

— Samuel Smiles

68. “Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.”

— Samuel Smiles

69. “Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession -a property entirely our own.”

— Samuel Smiles

70. “The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Win hearts, said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, and you have all men’s hearts and purses.”

— Samuel Smiles

71. “True politeness is consideration for the opinions of others. It has been said of dogmatism that it is only puppyism come to its full growth; and certainly the worst form this quality can assume is that of opinionativeness and arrogance.”

— Samuel Smiles

72. “The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.”

— Samuel Smiles

73. “Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy; labor turns out at six, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.”

— Samuel Smiles

74. “Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his father Philip for life.”

— Samuel Smiles

75. “The brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were, to follow him.”

— Samuel Smiles

76. “The egotist is next door to a fanatic.”

— Samuel Smiles

77. “Nothing of real worth can be obtained without courageous working. Man owes his growth chiefly to the active striving of the will, that encounter with difficulty which he calls effort; and it is astonishing to find how often results apparently impracticable are then made possible.”

— Samuel Smiles

78. “Make good thy standing place, and move the world.”

— Samuel Smiles

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

— Samuel Smiles

80. “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

81. “Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one’s duty embodies the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.”

— Samuel Smiles

82. “Great men are always exceptional men; and greatness itself is but comparative. Indeed, the range of most men in life is so limited that very few have the opportunity of being great.”

— Samuel Smiles

83. “Those who are the most persistent, and work in the true spirit, will invariably be the most successful.”

— Samuel Smiles

84. “Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct.”

— Samuel Smiles

85. “Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.”

— Samuel Smiles

86. “Riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches.”

— Samuel Smiles

87. “Cecil’s dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, “The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.””

— Samuel Smiles

88. “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

89. “The work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the tide, and reached the shore exhausted.”

— Samuel Smiles

90. “The highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men.”

— Samuel Smiles

91. “This extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society. Of iron.”

— Samuel Smiles

92. “The knowledge and experience which produce wisdom can only become a man’s individual possession and property by his own free action; and it is as futile to expect these without laborious, painstaking effort, as it is to hope to gather a harvest where the seed has not been sown.”

— Samuel Smiles

93. “The healthy spirit of self-help created among working people would, more than any other measure, serve to raise them as a class; and this, not by pulling down others, but by levelling them up to a higher and still advancing standard of religion, intelligence, and virtue.”

— Samuel Smiles

94. “Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary, gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterize the men, no less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds.”

— Samuel Smiles

95. “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

96. “Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.”

— Samuel Smiles

97. “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

98. “Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.”

— Samuel Smiles

99. “Those who have most to do, and are willing to work, will find the most time.”

— Samuel Smiles

100. “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