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Failure in any good cause is, however, honourable, whilst success in any bad cause is merely infamous.
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10 quotes by Samuel Smiles · clear filters
Failure in any good cause is, however, honourable, whilst success in any bad cause is merely infamous.
Such biographies increase a man's self-reliance by demonstrating what men can be, and what they can do; fortifying his hopes and elevating his aims in life.
Labour is not only a necessity and a duty, but a blessing: only the idler feels it to be a curse.
What is done in business must be well done; for it is better to accomplish perfectly a small amount of work, than to half-do ten times as much.
Work educates the body, as study educates the mind; and that is the best state of society in which there is some work for every man's leisure, and some leisure for every man's work.
Work is the law of our being--the living principle that carries men and nations onward.
A man's life is to be measured by what he does in it, and what he feels in it.
Life must needs be disgusting alike to the idle rich man as to the idle poor man, who has no work to do, or, having work, will not do it.
Every man's first duty is, to improve, to educate, and elevate himself--helping forward his brethren at the same time by all reasonable methods.
There is a dignity in the very effort to save with a worthy purpose, even though the attempt should not be crowned with eventual success.