Self-Help Quotes

“Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities. The poor man with rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit. To borrow St. Paul's words, the former is as "having nothing, yet possessing all things," while the other, though possessing all things has nothing. Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self respect, is still rich.”
― Samuel Smiles, Self-Help

“Many are the lives of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced civilization and progress as the more fortunate Great whose names are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person, who sets before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future influence upon the well-being of his country; for his life and character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and propagate good example for all time to come.”
― Samuel Smiles, Self Help; With Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance

“may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from within.  The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.  Nations who are thus enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters”
― Samuel Smiles, Self Help; with illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance

“The ignorant man passes through the world dead to all pleasures, save those of the senses.”
― Samuel Smiles, Self-Help

“The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up (p.10).”
― Samuel Smiles, Self-Help

“Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates (p.9).”
― Samuel Smiles, Self-Help

“It is not then how much a man may know that is of importance, but the end and purpose for which he knows it (p.299).”
― Samuel Smiles, Self-Help

“In fine, human character is moulded by a thousand subtle influences; by example and precept; by life and literature; by friends and neighbours; by the world we live in as well as by the spirits of our forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds we inherit. But great, unquestionably, though these influences are acknowledged to be, it is nevertheless equally clear that men must necassarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing; and that, however much the wise and the good may owe to others, they themselves in the very nature of things be their own best helpers (p.31).”
― Samuel Smiles, Self-Help