Samuel Smiles Quotes About Resilience

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.

Self-Help, Chapter XI, “Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties,” Project Gutenberg #935. The passage follows Charles James Fox’s contrast between early success and perseverance after failure, then leads into examples of discoveries and learning produced through mistakes and failed attempts.

Self-Help, Chapter I, “Self-Help—National and Individual,” Project Gutenberg #935. The sentence immediately follows Smiles’s statement that the spirit of self-help is the root of individual growth. It is preserved as Victorian conduct-of-life rhetoric, not as evidence that receiving help is generally harmful.

Self-Help, Chapter XI, “Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties,” Project Gutenberg #935. The passage comes immediately after Hodson’s reflection on resolutely doing difficult duties and continues by presenting difficulty as a stimulus to people of resolution and valour.

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.

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.