“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.”
Other Samuel Smiles Quotes
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 
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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
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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
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Hope... is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.
Samuel Smiles
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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.
Samuel Smiles
62% of people like this quote