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. – Samuel Smiles
Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession – a property entirely our own. – Samuel Smiles
The wise man… if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear. – Samuel Smiles
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. – Samuel Smiles
Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress. – Benjamin Disraeli