Samuel Smiles

It is not accident, then, that helps a man in the world so much as purpose and persistent industry.

Such is true wisdom and humility; for the more a man really knows, the less conceited he will be.

Labour is not only a necessity and a duty, but a blessing: only the idler feels it to be a curse.

He who allows his application to falter, or shirks his work on frivolous pretexts, is on the sure road to ultimate failure. Let any task be undertaken as a thing not possible to be evaded, and it will soon come to be performed with alacrity and cheerfulness.

The secret of it was, that he never left a minute unemployed.

Excellence in art, as in everything else, can only be achieved by dint of painstaking labour.

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

Defeats do not long cast down the resolute-hearted, but only serve to call forth their real powers.

Hence, as Mr. Lynch observes, 'the wisest habit of all is the habit of care in the formation of good habits.'

It is will, – force of purpose, – that enables a man to do or be whatever he sets his mind on being or doing.