THUS SPAKE SAMUEL SMILES

 

THUS SPAKE SAMUEL SMILES

 

CHARACTER is one of the greatest motive-powers in the world. In its noblest embodiments it exemplifies human nature in its highest forms, for it exhibits man at his best.

 

INTELLECTUAL culture has no necessary relation purity or excellence of character.

 

GOOD SENSE , disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.

 

ENERGY OF WILL –self-originating force----is the soul of every great character.  Where it is, there is life; where it is not, there is faintness, helplessness, and despondency.

 

GREAT WORKERS and great thinkers are the true makers of history, which is but continuous humanity influenced by men of character – by great leaders, kings, priests, philosophers, statesmen, and patriots – the true aristocracy of man.

 

NATIONS, like individuals, derive support and strength from the feeling that they belong to an illustrious race, that they are the heirs of their greatness, and ought to be the perpetuators of their glory.  It is of momentous importance that a nation should have a great past to look back upon.  It steadies the life of the present, elevates and upholds it, and lightens and lifts it up, by the memory of the great deeds, the noble sufferings, and the valorous achievements of the men of old.  The life of nations, as of men, is a great treasury of experience, which, wisely used, issues in social progress and improvement; or, misused, issues in dreams, delusions, and failure.  Like men, nations are purified and strengthened by trials.

 

WORK is the law of our being – the living principle that carries men and nations onward.  The greater number of men have to work with their hands, as a matter of necessity, in order to live; but all must work in one way or another, if they would enjoy life as it ought to be enjoyed.

 

TRUE HAPPINESS is never found in torpor of the faculties, but in their action and useful employment.  It is indolence that exhausts, not action, in which there is life, health and pleasure.  The spirits may be exhausted and wearied by employment, but they are utterly wasted by idleness.

 

COURAGE, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome difficulties apparently insurmountable.  It gives force and impulse to effort, and does not permit it to retreat.

 

SELF-CONTROL is at the root of all the virtues.  Let a man give the reins to his impulses and passions, and from that moment he yields up his moral freedom.  He is carried along the current of life, and becomes the slave of his strongest desire for the time being.

 

GOOD MANNERS are usually supposed to be the peculiar characteristic of persons gently born and bred, and of persons moving in the higher rather than in the lower spheres of society.  And this is no doubt to a great extent true, because of the more favourable surroundings of the former in early life.  But there is no reason why the poorest classes should not practise good manners towards each other as well as the richest.

 

SUFFERING may be the appointed means by which the highest nature of man is to be disciplined and developed.  Assuming happiness to be the end of being, sorrow may be the indispensable condition through which it is to be reached.

 

LIFE, all sunshine without shade, all happiness without sorrow, all pleasure without pain, were not life at all---at least not human life.  Take the lot of the happiest---it is a tangled yarn.  It is made up of sorrows and joys; and the joys are all the sweeter because of the sorrows; bereavements and blessings, one following another, making us sad and blessed by turns.  Even death itself makes life more loving; it binds us more closely together while here.