Samuel Smiles Quotes


Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into practical life will find that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.


Citations

Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct. John Murray, 1859, p. 66.

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Samuel Smiles
Samuel Smiles
  • Born: December 23, 1812
  • Died: April 16, 1904
  • Nationality: Scottish
  • Profession: Author

Samuel Smiles was a Scottish author and government reformer. Although he campaigned on a Chartist platform, he promoted the idea that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His primary work, Self-Help (1859), promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism" and had lasting effects on British political thought.