A place for everything, and everything in its place.
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

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

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

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

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

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

It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action.
Samuel Smiles

Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession - a property entirely our own.
Samuel Smiles


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

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

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

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

Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them.
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

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

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.
Samuel Smiles