SMILES, Samuel

Self Help

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How a man uses money - makes it, saves it, and spends it - it is perhaps one of the best tests of practical wisdom. Although money ought by no means to be regarded as a chief end of mans life, neither is it a trifling matter, to be held in philosophic contempt, representing, as it does to so large an extent, the means of physical comfort and social well-being. Indeed, some of the finest qualities of human nature are intimately related to the right use of money: such as generosity, honesty , justice, and self-sacrifice, as well as the practical virtues of economy and providence.

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Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us. ...Hope sweetens the memory of experiences well loved. It tempers our troubles to our growth and our strength. It befriends us in the dark hours, excites us in bright ones. It lends promise to the future and purpose to the past. It turns discouragement to determination.

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There is no power of law that can make the idle man industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober; though every individual can be each and all of these if he will, by the exercise of his own free powers of action and self-denial. Indeed, all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal improvement.

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