Indispensable Condition of Success

"Looking at some of the more remarkable, it might almost be said that early encounter with difficulty and adverse circumstances was the necessary and indispensable condition of success."

-- Samuel Smiles

The Pleasure of The Pursuit

"IT WAS NOT by luck or accident that these men achieved distinction, but by sheer industry and hard work. Though some achieved wealth, yet this was rarely, if ever, the ruling motive . Indeed, no mere love of money could sustain the efforts of the artist in his early career of self-denial and application. The pleasure of the pursuit has always been its best reward; the wealth which followed but an accident."

-- Samuel Smiles

The Product of Unremitting Study

"EXCELLENCE IN ART, as in everything else, can only be achieved by dint of painstaking labour. THERE IS nothing less accidental than the painting of a fine picture or the chiselling of a noble statue. Every skilled touch of the artist’s brush or chisel, though guided by genius, is the product of unremitting study."

-- Samuel Smiles

Don't Let Time Pass Without Yielding Fruits

"It would make an ignorant man a well-informed one in less than ten years. Time should not be allowed to pass without yielding fruits, in the form of something learnt worthy of being known, some good principle cultivated, or some good habit strengthened."

-- Samuel Smiles

How To Go Far Towards Mastering Anything

"With perseverance, the very odds and ends of time may be worked up into results of the greatest value. An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, if profitably employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity to go far towards mastering a science."

-- Samuel Smiles

Much Can Be Accomplished via Purpose and Persistent

 "It is not accident, then, that helps a man in the world so much as purpose and persistent industry. To the feeble, the sluggish and purposeless, the happiest accidents avail nothing,— they pass them by, seeing no meaning in them. But it is astonishing how much can be accomplished if we are prompt to seize and improve the opportunities for action and effort which are constantly presenting themselves."

-- Samuel Smiles

People Who Resolved To Find a Way

"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."

-- Samuel Smiles 

Every Little Bits of Knowledge and Experience

"It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts, made by successive generations of men, the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid."

-- Samuel Smiles

Bad For Those Who Never Made Mistake

"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.

-— Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), Scottish author and reformer