Samuel Smiles

“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.”

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

“Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.”

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

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

“Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action.”

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

“The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.”

“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.”

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

“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.”

“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.”