Geburtsdatum | Mittwoch, 23. Dezember 1812 |
Geburtsort | Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland |
Todesort | Kensington |
Sternzeichen | |
Beschreibung | Samuel Smiles (23. Dezember 1812 - 16. April 1904) war ein britischer Schriftsteller und Regierungsreformer. Obwohl er für die Chartisten kämpfte, vertrat er die Ansicht, dass neue Einstellungen mehr Fortschritt bringen würden als neue Gesetze. Sein Hauptwerk, Self-Help (1859), warb für Sparsamkeit und behauptete, dass Armut größtenteils auf unverantwortliche Gewohnheiten zurückzuführen sei, während er gleichzeitig Materialismus und Laissez-faire-Regierung angriff. Es wurde als "die Bibel des mittelviktorianischen Liberalismus" bezeichnet und hatte nachhaltige Auswirkungen auf das politische Denken in Großbritannien. |
Progress however, 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.
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.
Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.
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.
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.
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.
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.
