Browse 7 quotations connecting Samuel Smiles with Consistency, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include Thrift, The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Men of Invention and Industry. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include Thrift, The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Men of Invention and Industry.
“His efforts were long, laborious, and sometimes apparently hopeless.”
Smiles emphasizes the duration and difficulty of John Harrison’s work before success, making perseverance visible as sustained labor rather than instant inspiration.
Source note: Men of Invention and Industry, Chapter III, “John Harrison: Inventor of the Marine Chronometer”; Project Gutenberg #725. This is Smiles’s biographical narration, not Harrison speaking in first person.
“His motto was 'Persevere!'”
Smiles condenses Stephenson’s response to repeated engineering and institutional obstacles into a single governing principle of continued effort.
Source note: The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Chapter XI, “Chat Moss—Construction of the Railway”; represented 1868 revised edition, Project Gutenberg #46229. The motto appears in Smiles’s surrounding narration immediately after the quoted Chat Moss recollection.
“There was no help for it, however, but to go on.”
During the Chat Moss crisis, continuing became the practical choice after heavy investment and discouraging expert opinion had narrowed the alternatives.
Source note: The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Chapter XI, “Chat Moss—Construction of the Railway”; represented 1868 revised edition, Project Gutenberg #46229. Smiles records Stephenson’s first-person recollection of the directors’ crisis over Chat Moss in quoted speech.
“The more the habit of thrift is practised, the easier it becomes.”
Repeated practice lowers the effort required for prudent behavior, illustrating how a difficult choice can gradually become an established habit.
Source note: Thrift, Chapter II, “Habits of Thrift,” Project Gutenberg #14418. The sentence completes Smiles’s practical paragraph on forming habits of economy: repeated thrift becomes easier and eventually compensates the self-denial it initially requires.
“Genius is but a capability of labouring intensely: it is the power of making great and sustained efforts.”
Genius is redefined as capacity for sustained effort, emphasizing endurance and application over an image of effortless inspiration.
Source note: Thrift, Chapter I, “Industry,” Project Gutenberg #14418. Immediately after linking greatness in art, literature and science with labour, Smiles rhetorically defines genius as a capacity for intense and sustained effort; it is not treated as a modern psychological finding.
“No great work has ever been done “at a heat.” It is the result of repeated efforts, and often of many failures.”
Repeated attempts and failure are treated as normal parts of producing substantial work, countering the idea that important creation happens fully formed in one effort.
Source note: Thrift, Chapter I, “Industry,” Project Gutenberg #14418. The sentence immediately follows the poetry example and presents substantial work as the product of repeated effort and failure; the absolute wording is Smiles’s rhetorical generalization.
“The noblest poem cannot be elaborated, and send down its undying strains into the future, without steady and painstaking labour.”
Poetic achievement is used as an example of creative work requiring patient elaboration rather than appearing complete in a single burst.
Source note: Thrift, Chapter I, “Industry,” Project Gutenberg #14418. The sentence follows Smiles’s claim that useful and beautiful thoughts arise from sustained intellectual work and uses poetry as one example of painstaking creative labour.