Samuel Smiles Life Quotations

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

The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.

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.

Length of years is no proper test of length of life. A man's life is to be measured by what he does in it and what he feels in it.

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

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.

It is not ease but effort, not facility but difficult, that makes man. There is perhaps no station in life in which difficulties do not have to be encountered and overcome before any decided means of success can be achieved.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but of the nature of learning; whereas, the experience gained from actual life is of the nature of wisdom; and a small store of the latter is worth vastly more than any stock of the former

It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.

The shortest way to do many things is to do one at a time.