“
Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Happy Homes and the Hearts That Make Them)
“
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“
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.
Samuel Smiles
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
His brother maintained that what sent people backing away was neither his size nor his mother's blood, but solely the expression on his face. To test Samuel's theory, Charles had tried smiling - and then solemnly reported to Samuel that he had been mistaken. When Charles smiled, he told Samuel, people just ran faster.
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Fair Game (Alpha & Omega, #3))
“
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
Personally of course I regret everything.
Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need,
not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy,
not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust,
not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear,
not a name, not a face, no time, no place...that I do not regret, exceedingly.
An ordure, from beginning to end.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Watt)
“
Are you done yet?' Issac called
Charles tilted his head back and called back, 'I suppose that's why they call you the five minute wonder.'
Anna could feel her eyes round and her mouth drop open 'I cant believe you just said that' She paused and reconsidered. 'I am so telling Samuel you said that.'
Charles smiled. kissed her gently, and said 'Samuel won't believe you.
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Fair Game (Alpha & Omega, #3))
“
Drink it,” I told her. “It’s good for what ails you. Caffeine and sugar. I don’t drink it, so I ran over to your house and stole the expensive stuff in your freezer. It shouldn’t be that bad. Samuel told me to make it strong and pour sugar into it. It should taste sort of like bitter syrup.”
She gave me a smile smile, then a bigger one, and plugged her nose before she drank it down in one gulp. “Next time," she said in a hoarse voice, “I make the coffee.
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, #1))
“
I never knew true fear until I met pure evil. He wore a smile and a bow tie.
”
”
T.M. Frazier (Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part One (King, #5))
“
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions,—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasant thought and feeling.
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“
Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
Nay, Sir, it was not the WINE that made your head ache, but the SENSE that I put into it'
'What, Sir! will sense make the head ache?'
'Yes, Sir, (with a smile,) when it is not used to it.
”
”
James Boswell (The Life of Samuel Johnson)
“
Sometimes I went and looked at my grave. The stone was up already. It was a simple Latin cross, white. I wanted to have my name put on it, with the here lies and the date of my birth. Then all it would have wanted was the date of my death. They would not let me. Sometimes I smiled, as if I were dead already.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Molloy)
“
Dexter thrust a pamphlet into Samuel's hand. "Greenstreet Mission. We're doing a Christmas dinner. You can get a meal and hear the word of God."
Samuel smiled in relief. This, finally, he understood. "Which word?"
"What?"
"Well, God's said a lot of words, you know, and a word like 'it' or 'the' wouldn't be worth hearing again but its always fun listening to Him try and say aluminum.
”
”
Tanya Huff (The Second Summoning (Keeper's Chronicles, #2))
“
Hey Doc?” he asked, searching my eyes. His laugh quieted and his smile fell.
My stomach flipped. “Yeah?”
“This time…I’m gonna keep you.
”
”
T.M. Frazier (Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part Two (King, #6))
“
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable,is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is of the nature of wisdom
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
Her smile was like a Samuel Beckett play - easy to read but difficult to interpret.
”
”
Bob Smith (Openly Bob)
“
Strange, to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and wife gazing and smiling at them.
”
”
Samuel Pepys
“
Ruth hadn't talked to my sister since before my death,
and then it was only to excuse herself in the hallway at
school. But she'd seen Lindsey walking home with Samuel and
seen her smile with him. She watched as my sister said yes
to pancakes and no to everything else. She had tried to
imagine herself being my sister as she had spent time
imagining being me.
”
”
Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones)
“
We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it. Every one has bad breaks, but every one also has opportunities. The man who can smile at his breaks and grab his chances gets on.
”
”
Samuel Goldwyn
“
WINNIE: Sometimes I am wrong. (Smile.) But not often. (Smile off.) Sometimes all is over, for the day, all done, all said, all ready for the night, and the day not over, far from over, the night not ready, far, far from ready. (Smile.) But not often. (Smile off.)
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Happy Days)
“
Un cronopio va a abrir la puerta de la calle, y al meter la mano en el bolsillo para sacar la llave lo que saca es una caja de fósforos, entonces este cronopio se aflige mucho y empieza a pensar que si en vez de llave encuentra fósforos, sería horrible que el mundo se hubiera desplazado de golpe, y a lo mejor si los fósforos están donde la llave, puede suceder que encuentre la billetera llena de fósforos, y la azucarera llena de dinero, y el piano lleno de azúcar, y la guía del teléfono llena de música, y el ropero lleno de abonados, y la cama llena de trajes, y los floreros llenos de sábanas, y los tranvías llenos de rosas, y los campos llenos de tranvías. Así que este cronopio se aflige horriblemente y corre a mirarse al espejo, pero como el espejo está algo ladeado lo que ve es el paragüero del zaguán, y sus presunciones se confirman y estalla en sollozos, cae de rodillas y junta sus manecitas no sabe para qué. Los famas vecinos acuden a consolarlo, y también las esperanzas, pero pasan horas antes de que el cronopio salga de su desesperación y acepte una taza de té, que mira y examina mucho antes de beber, no vaya a ser que en vez de una taza de té sea un hormiguero o un libro de Samuel Smiles.
”
”
Julio Cortázar (Cronopios and Famas)
“
We learn wisdom from failure much more than success. We often discover what we will do, by finding out what we will not do.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
Samuel smiled at him. “They say man lived in trees one time. Somebody had to get dissatisfied with a high limb or your feet would not be touching flat ground now.
”
”
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
“
One more month," he said finally. "And then they—and Samuel, too—will just have to get used to it. His eye is the color of a bitch with dark chocolate, worst few years and he leaned forward. "And you will marry me."
I smiled, showing my teeth. "Don't you mean, ‘will you marry me?’"
I meant it to be funny, but his eyes brightened until the gold flecks were swimming in the darkness. "You had your chance to run, coyote. It's too late now.
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, #5))
“
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
How come you write the way you do?” an apprentice writer in my Johns Hopkins workshop once disingenuously asked Donald Barthelme, who was visiting. Without missing a beat, Don replied, “Because Samuel Beckett was already writing the way he does.”
Asked another, smiling but serious, “How can we become better writers than we are?”
“Well," DB advised, “for starters, read through the whole history of philosophy, from the pre-Socratics up through last semester. That might help.”
“But Coach Barth has already advised us to read all of literature, from Gilgamesh up through last semester...”
“That, too,” Donald affirmed, and twinkled that shrewd Amish-farmer-from-West-11th-Street twinkle of his. “You’re probably wasting time on things like eating and sleeping. Cease that, and read all of philosophy and all of literature. Also art. Plus politics and a few other things. The history of everything.
”
”
John Barth (Further Fridays: Essays, Lectures, and Other Nonfiction, 1984 - 1994)
“
We're plotting to steal time itself from you.... We're going to spike it to the floor as it slips by. And just as you come over to see why it's so still, we'll pull it out from under you--and send you spinning off around the galaxy's edge. We're planning to pluck all the best stars out of the sky and stuff them in our pockets... so that when we meet you once again and thrust our hands deep inside to hide our embarrassment, our fingertips will smart on them, as if they were desert grains, caught down in the seams, and we'll smile at you on your way to a glory that, for all our stellar thefts, we shall never be able to duplicate.
”
”
Samuel R. Delany (Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand)
“
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained form actual life is of the nature of wisdom.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
Isaiah smiled at Samuel's unwillingness, his grunts and sighs and head shaking, even though he understood the danger in it. Tiny resistances were a kind of healing in a weeping place.
”
”
Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets)
“
One picks one's way about through the glass and aluminum doors, the receptionists' smiles, the lunches with too much alcohol, the openings with more, the mobs of people desperately trying to define good taste in such loud voices one can hardly hear oneself giggle, while the shebang is lit by flashes and flares through the paint-stained window, glimmers under the police-locked door, or, if one is taking a rare walk outside that day, by a light suffusing the whole sky, complex as the northern aurora.
”
”
Samuel R. Delany (Dhalgren)
“
Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities. The poor man with rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit. To borrow St. Paul's words, the former is as "having nothing, yet possessing all things," while the other, though possessing all things has nothing. Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self respect, is still rich.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Self-Help)
“
Many are the lives of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced civilization and progress as the more fortunate Great whose names are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person, who sets before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future influence upon the well-being of his country; for his life and character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and propagate good example for all time to come.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Self Help; With Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance)
“
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.
- Work without Hope
”
”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Complete Poems)
“
I thought you were dead," he said, his voice a bare rasp while Samual moved from his hands to his feet. It didn't seem to hurt as much—at a guess there weren't a lot of nerves left. He jumped into a burning building barefoot to save me.
"Stupid," I said, blinking hard. "As if I'd die without taking you with me."
He smiled faintly. "Was it Mary Jo who betrayed us at the bowling alley?
" he asked, proven he hadn't been entirely unaware of what had been going on while he was changing.
Both of us ignore the pained sound Mary Jo made.
"I'll ask her later."
He nodded. "Better—" He quit talking, and his pupils contracted despite the morphine he'd been giving.
He arched up and twisted so he could press his face into my belly, making a noise somewhere between a screem and a growel. I held him there well Samual snared at Ben and Mary Jo to hold him still.
Another shot of morphine, and Samuel moved us all around. Ben across Adams legs— "And don't think I haven't noticed your hands, Ben. You're next up." Mary Jo on one arm, just above the elbow. Me on the other.
"Can you hold him?" asked Samuel.
"Not if he doesn't want me to," I told him.
"It'll be alright," Adam said. "I won't hurt her."
Samuel smiled tightly. "No, I didn't think you would."
When Samuel started on Adams face with the brush, I had to close my eyes.
"Shh," Adam comforted me. "It'll be over soon.
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, #5))
“
There is far too much croaking among young men.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Duty: With Illustrations of Courage, Patience and Endurance)
“
smile can change the world but
laugh will destroy the earth.....!
”
”
Felix A. Samuel
“
Truthfulness is at the foundation of all personal excellence.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Character)
“
Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.” – Samuel Smiles
”
”
Jones Lee (Mental Toughness: Develop a Winner's Mindset And Conquer Success (Gain Incredible Self Confidence, Motivation & True Discipline))
“
Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.” ― Samuel Smiles
”
”
Kenneth J. Hutchins (HABITS: 10 Powerful Habits of Successful People (Personal Transformation, Personal Success, Motivation & Self Improvement))
“
We would either have a silent, a soft, a perfumed cross, sugared and honeyed with the consolations of Christ, or we faint; and providence must either brew a cup of gall and wormwood, mastered in the mixing with joy and songs, else we cannot be disciples. But Christ’s cross did not smile on him, his cross was a cross, and his ship sailed in blood, and his blessed soul was sea-sick, and heavy even to death.
”
”
Samuel Rutherford (Christ dying and drawing sinners to himself, or, A survey of our Saviour in his soule-suffering, his lovelynesse in his death, and the efficacie ... in weeke beleevers are opened (1647))
“
Whilst writing all this, I have had in my mind a woman, whose strong and serious mind would not have failed to support me in these contentions. I lost her thirty years ago [I was a child then]--nevertheless, ever living in my memory, she follows me from age to age.
She suffered with me in my poverty, and was not allowed to share my better fortune. When young, I made her sad, and now I cannot console her. I know not even where her bones are: I was too poor then to buy earth to bury her!
And yet I owe her much. I feel deeply that I am the son of woman. Every instant, in my ideas and words [not to mention my features and gestures], I find again my mother in myself. It is my mother's blood which gives me the sympathy I feel for bygone ages, and the tender remembrance of all those who are now no more.
What return then could I, who am myself advancing towards old age, make her for the many things I owe her? One, for which she would have thanked me--this protest in favour of women and mothers.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Character)
“
I LOVE this!!!
“‘Jacob have I loved,’” Kingsley said in English once more. “‘Esau have I hated.’ Romans 9:13. I paid attention in school sometimes.”
“Not nearly enough attention.”
“I was preoccupied.”
“Obviously. You learned all the wrong verses. First Samuel 18:1. ‘And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’ First Samuel 20:16-17. ‘So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “Let the Lord even require it at the hands of David’s enemies.” And Jonathan caused David to swear again, because he loved him: for he loved as he loved his own soul.’ Second Samuel 1:26. ‘I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan…thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.’”
Kingsley stared at Søren and found he couldn’t speak.
Søren smiled at his sudden muteness.
“Don’t get into a scriptural pissing contest with a Jesuit priest, Kingsley,” Søren chided. “You’ll lose every time.
”
”
Tiffany Reisz (The Mistress (The Original Sinners, #4))
“
To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something. To pause, towards the close of one's three hour day, and consider: the darkening ease, the brightening trouble; the pleasure pleasure because it was, the pain pain because it shall be; the glad acts grown proud, the proud acts growing stubborn; the panting the trembling towards a being gone, a being to come; and the true true no longer, and the false true not yet. And to decide not to smile after all, sitting in the shade, hearing the cicadas, wishing it were night, wishing it were morning, saying, No, it is not the heart, no, it is not the liver, no, it is not the prostate, no it is not the ovaries, no, it is muscular, it is nervous. Then the gnashing ends, or it goes on, and one is in the pit, in the hollow, the longing for longing gone, the horror of horror, and one is in the hollow, at the foot of all the hills at last, the ways down, the ways up, and free, free at last, for an instant free at last, nothing at last.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Watt)
“
Indeed, we can always better understand and appreciate a man's real character by the manner in which he conducts himself towards those who are the most nearly related to him, and by his transaction of the seemingly commonplace details of daily duty, than by his public exhibition of himself as an author, an orator, or a statesman.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Character)
“
From 1788 onward, the quantity of iron England produced doubled every eight or ten years, an early industrial version of Moore’s law.10 What major product did England manufacture from all that iron? Nails, says Samuel Smiles, the Victorian chronicler, “nails of iron made with pit coal.”11 It was still a wooden world, the craftsman’s essential tool a hammer.
”
”
Richard Rhodes (Energy: A Human History)
“
The ignorant man passes through the world dead to all pleasures, save those of the senses.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Self-Help)
“
You should know by now, Doc, that even death can't keep a motherfucker down," Preppy said with a devilish smile.
”
”
T.M. Frazier (Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part Three (King, #7))
“
When the Holy Spirit moves, your family smiles
”
”
Samuel Asumadu-Sarkodie
“
You should know by now, Doc, that even death can’t keep a motherfucker down,” preppy said with a devilish smile.
”
”
T.M. Frazier (Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part Three (King, #7))
“
Appreciation is not a warm feeling, Rydra realized, but cool, and makes your back relax at the same time that you smile.
”
”
Samuel R. Delany (Babel-17)
“
Simple honesty of purpose in a man goes a long way in life, if founded on a just estimate of himself and a steady obedience to the rule he knows and feels to be right.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Character)
“
Amory smiled discreetly...'But beware the artist who's an intellectual also. The artist who doesn't fit--the Rousseau, the Tolstoi, the Samuel Butler, the Amory Blaine-
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
“
Sopan santun banyak manfaatnya, tetapi tidak menuntut bayaran.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man may clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
way off on the right in the mud the hand opens and closes that helps me it's going let it go I realize I'm still smiling there's no sense in that now been none for a long time now
”
”
Samuel Beckett (How It Is)
“
He’d have to call his brother, Samuel, and tell him that he’d finally learned that his face wouldn’t crack if he smiled. All it had taken to teach him was an Omega werewolf.
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Alpha & Omega (Alpha & Omega, #0.5))
“
A man may be accomplished in art, literature, and science, and yet, in honesty, virtue, truthfulness, and the spirit of duty, be entitled to take rank after many a poor and illiterate peasant.
”
”
Samuel Smiles (Character)
“
Well, your perfect erotic object remains only in recognition memory); and his absolute absence from reconstruction memory becomes the yearning that is, finally, desire. That socially surrounded absence, when you’re young, masks a lot of things in the real world; when you’re older and a few thousand sexual encounters have begun to clear what desire is about (or perhaps what really lies about desire) and you have begun to perceive desire’s edges, its effect is not so much that of an obliterator any more as it is that of a distorting lens. If you can smile at what you see through, it’s sometimes illuminating.
”
”
Samuel R. Delany (Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand)
“
Write then, now that you are young, nonsense by the ream. Be silly, be sentimental, imitate Shelley, imitate Samuel Smiles; give the rein to every impulse; commit every fault of style, grammar, taste, and syntax; pour out; tumble over; loose anger, love, satire, in whatever words you can catch, coerce or create, in whatever metre, prose, poetry, or gibberish that comes to hand. Thus you will learn to write.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (A Letter to a Young Poet: Including the Essay 'Craftsmanship')
“
The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill; and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be nothing to be achieved.
”
”
Samuel Smiles
“
My time is limited. It is thence that one fine day, when all nature smiles and shines, the rack lets loose its black unforgettable cohorts and sweeps away the blue for ever. My situation is truly delicate. What fine things, what momentous things, i am going to miss through fear, fear of falling back into the old error, fear of not finishing in time, fear of revelling, for the last time, in a last outpouring of misery, impotence and hate. The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its formlessness.
”
”
Samuel Beckett (Malone Dies)
“
) A man ought to be a friend to his friend and repay gift with gift. People should meet smiles with smiles and lies with treachery. A man ought to be a friend to his friend and also to his friend’s friend. But no one should be friendly with a friend of his foe.
”
”
Samuel Bowles (A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution)
“
Samuel Clearwater, I promise I’ll never leave you,” I whispered, my voice as shaky as my limbs. “I love you.”
Preppy closed his eyes. A lazy, satisfied smile appeared on his face. He dropped his head back onto my chest. “Love doesn’t even begin to cover it, Doc.
”
”
T.M. Frazier (Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part Three (King, #7))
“
Samuel Smiles ends his book with the following moving story of the “gentleman” general:
The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little daily occurrences of life…we may cite the anecdote of the gallant Sir Ralph Abercromby, of whom it is related, that, when mortally wounded in the battle of Aboukir, and, to ease his pain, a soldier’s blanket was placed under his head, from which he experienced considerable relief.
He asked what it was.
“It’s only a soldier’s blanket,” was the reply.
“Whose blanket is it?” said he, half lifting himself up.
“Only one of the men’s.”
“I wish to know the name of the man whose blanket this is.”
“It is Duncan Roy’s, of the 42nd, Sir Ralph.”
“Then see that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night.”
Even to ease his dying agony the general would not deprive the private soldier of his blanket for one night.
As Samuel wrote: “True courage and gentleness go hand in hand.”
It was in this family, belief system, and heritage that Walter, my great-grandfather, grew up and dared to dream.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
Mr. Singleton smiled, and look’d as if delighted with all he saw and heard. Once, indeed, he try’d to speak: His mouth actually open’d, to give passage to his words; as sometimes seems to be his way before the words are quite ready: But he sat down satisfied with the effort.
”
”
Samuel Richardson (Complete Works of Samuel Richardson)
“
Walter came from a strong line of self-motivated, determined folk: not grand, not high-society, but no-nonsense, family-minded, go-getters. His grandfather had been Samuel Smiles, who, in 1859, authored the original motivational book, titled Self-Help. It was a landmark work, and an instant bestseller, even outselling Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species when it was first launched.
Samuel’s book Self-Help also made plain the mantra that hard work and perseverance were the keys to personal progress. At a time in Victorian society where, as an Englishman, the world was your oyster if you had the get-up-and-go to make things happen, his book Self-Help struck a chord. It became the ultimate Victorian how-to guide, empowering the everyday person to reach for the sky. And at its heart it said that nobility is not a birthright but is defined by our actions. It laid bare the simple but unspoken secrets for living a meaningful, fulfilling life, and it defined a gentleman in terms of character not blood type.
Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly qualities.
The poor man with a rich spirit is in all ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit.
To borrow St. Paul’s words, the former is as “having nothing, yet possessing all things,” while the other, though possessing all things, has nothing.
Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is still rich.
These were revolutionary words to Victorian, aristocratic, class-ridden England. To drive the point home (and no doubt prick a few hereditary aristocratic egos along the way), Samuel made the point again that being a gentleman is something that has to be earned: “There is no free pass to greatness.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
I honour a good, a generous, a brave, and humane soldier: But were such an one to be the bravest of men, how can his wife expect constant protection from the husband who is less his own, and consequently less hers, than almost any other man can be (a sailor excepted); and who must therefore, oftener, than any other man, leave her exposed to those insults, from which she seems to think he can best defend her? Lady L. (smiling) But may it not be said, Sir, that those women who make soldiers their choice, deserve in some degree, a rank with heroes; when they can part with their husbands for the sake of their country’s glory?
”
”
Samuel Richardson (Complete Works of Samuel Richardson)
“
Mr. Reeves told me, that I should find the Baronet a very troublesome and resolute Lover, if I did not give him countenance. And so, Sir, said I, you would have me do, as I have heard many a good woman has done, marry a man, in order to get rid of his importunity. And a certain cure too, let me tell you, cousin, said he, smiling.
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Samuel Richardson (Complete Works of Samuel Richardson)
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Others, with softer smiles, and subtler art, Can sap the principles, or taint the heart; With more address a lover's note convey, Or bribe a virgin's innocence away. Well may they rise, while I, whose rustic tongue Ne'er knew to puzzle right, or varnish wrong, Spurned as a beggar, dreaded as a spy, Live unregarded, unlamented die. For
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Samuel Johnson (The Major Works of Samuel Johnson)
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But I will not allow you to be put down. You aren’t done with this life yet, little badass. You just got a big old beast put inside you, and you have to learn how to work with her.” “How?” “With support. You have Samuel and Red Havoc. And first and foremost, you have me for as long as you want. For every breath, every smile, every tear, I’ll be here right here beside you. Leaving didn’t fix anything for either of us. It hurt She-Devil, it hurt you, it hurt me, it hurt Titan. I tried to let you go so you could have a better life, but it didn’t take. So, this is where we dig our toes in against the hurricane that is your monster kitty and walk through the damn storm together. Deal? No quitting. I won’t let you.
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T.S. Joyce (Red Havoc Rogue (Red Havoc Panthers, #1))
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Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of brain-power, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life. Men of genius stand to society in the relation of its intellect, as men of character of its conscience; and while the former are admired, the latter are followed.
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Samuel Smiles (Character)
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may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. Nations who are thus enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters
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Samuel Smiles (Self Help; with illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance)
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To both of our surprises, I gripped her closer and squeezed her until she relaxed back into my arms. "Don't apologize for feeling things freely. Just because I'm bad at it, doesn't mean I don't envy it."
She sniffled and looked up at me. She shook her head and frowned. "Your issue is not that you don't feel, Ford. Your issue is that you feel too much." She smiled and put her head back on my racing heart.
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Piper Sheldon (My Bare Lady (Scorned Women's Society, #1))
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Almost a hundred years earlier, to the day, Samuel Smiles had written the final pages of his book Self-Help. It included this moving tale of heroism as an example for the Victorian Englishman to follow. For the fate of my great-grandfather, Walter, it was poignant in the extreme.
The vessel was steaming along the African coast with 472 men and 166 women and children on board.
The men consisted principally of recruits who had been only a short time in the service.
At two o’clock in the morning, while all were asleep below, the ship struck with violence upon a hidden rock, which penetrated her bottom; and it was at once felt that she would go down.
The roll of the drums called the soldiers to arms on the upper deck, and the men mustered as if on parade.
The word was passed to “save the women and children”; and the helpless creatures were brought from below, mostly undressed, and handed silently into the boats.
When they had all left the ship’s side, the commander of the vessel thoughtlessly called out, “All those that can swim, jump overboard and make for the boats.”
But Captain Wright, of the 91st Highlanders, said, “No! If you do that, the boats with the women will be swamped.” So the brave men stood motionless. Not a heart quailed; no one flinched from his duty.
“There was not a murmur, nor a cry among them,” said Captain Wright, a survivor, “until the vessel made her final plunge.”
Down went the ship, and down went the heroic band, firing a volley shot of joy as they sank beneath the waves.
Glory and honor to the gentle and the brave!
The examples of such men never die, but, like their memories, they are immortal.
As a young man, Walter undoubtedly would have read and known those words from his grandfather’s book.
Poignant in the extreme.
Indeed, the examples of such men never die, but, like their memories, they are immortal.
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Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
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They expected the crowd that had already gathered, golden in the torchlight of dawn. Some were tired. Some were smiling. The latter stunned Isaiah, but not Samuel. These were people after all. There was, therefore, some kind of happiness to be found in someone else being humiliated for once. Failure of memory prevented the empathy that should have been natural. Samuel knew, though, that it was selective memory, the kind that was cultivated here among the forget-me-nots.
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Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets)
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He looked at me and I couldn’t read his face or his scent. “I talked to Samuel earlier. He’s sorry to have missed the excitement, but he’s at home now. If Fideal follows you home, he’ll have Samuel to contend with.” He waved his hand around. “And there are plenty of us here to come to your aid."
“Are you sending me home?” Was I flirting? Damn it, I was.
He smiled, first with his eyes and then his lips, just a little, just enough to turn his face into something that made my pulse pick up. “You can stay if you’d like,” he said, flirting right back. Then, a wicked light gleaming in his eyes, he went one step too far. “But I think there are too many people around for what I’d like you to stay for.”
I dodged around Honey’s husband and out the door, the flip-flops making little snapping sounds that didn’t cover up Adam’s final comment. “I like your tattoo, Mercy.”
I made sure that my shoulders were stiff as I walked away. He couldn’t see the grin on my face . . .
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Patricia Briggs (Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson, #3))
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17.2 One evening I was to meet Marilyn up at her mother's apartment for our ritual Friday night dinner. On my way up to the Bronx, when I got off at the 175th Street station, I decided to stop in and see what sort of sexual activity was going on in the subway john there. I'd never gone into that one before, perhaps because I usually came there with Marilyn.
I pushed into the yellow-tiled space, with its dim, caged light-bulbs. There was only one guy at the urinal, a tall workman in greens and scuffed orange construction boots-- which had, only in the last year or so, become standard wear for the nation's laborers. I stood a stall away from him, and we glanced at each other. When I smiled, he turned toward me.
I reached for his penis.
Holding it, I realized something was wrong with it, but, for the moment, couldn't quite figure what. For its thickness and harness it was too short. It ended in a kind of flat stump, like a sawed-off dowel, without the collar or taper of glans, making me think he was uncircumcised. Only there was no cuff of skin.
That's when he said, a little hoarsely, "That's what there is. If you want it, it's yours. But that's it." And I realized that, either from medical procedure or something else, the first inch or so had been amputated.
He came very fast.
I wanted to talk with him afterward, but he zipped up once we were finished and hurried away. I never saw him again, though I looked for him. But the image stayed, unsettlingly, for a while.
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Samuel R. Delany (The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village)
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See a fond mother incircled by her children: With pious tenderness she looks around, and her soul even melts with maternal Love. One she kisses on the forehead; and clasps another to her bosom. One she sets upon her knees; and finds a seat upon her foot for another. And while, by their actions, their lisping words, and asking eyes, she understands their various numberless little wishes, to these she dispenses a look; a word to those; and whether she smiles or frowns, ’tis all in tender Love.
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Samuel Richardson (Complete Works of Samuel Richardson)
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You’re a werewolf,” said Nemane. “Samuel Cornick.” There was a pause. “The Marrok is Bran Cornick.” I kept my gaze on Samuel. “I was just explaining to Dr. Altman why it would be inadvisable for them to eliminate me even though I’m sticking my nose in their business.” Comprehension lit his eyes, which he narrowed at the fae. “Killing Mercy would be a mistake,” he growled. “My da had Mercy raised in our pack and he couldn’t love Mercy more if she were his daughter. For her he would declare open war with the fae and damned be the consequences. You can call him and ask, if you doubt my word.” I’d expected Samuel to defend me—and the fae could not afford to hurt the son of the Marrok, not unless the stakes were a lot higher. I’d counted on that to keep Samuel safe or I’d have found some way to keep him out of it. But the Marrok… I’d always thought I was an annoyance, the only one Bran couldn’t count on for instant obedience. He’d been protective, still was—but his protective instinct was one of the things that made him dominant. I’d thought I was just one more person he had to take care of. But it was as impossible to doubt the truth in Samuel’s voice as it was to believe that he’d be mistaken about Bran. I was glad that Samuel was focused on Nemane, who had risen to her feet when Samuel began speaking. While I blinked back stupid tears, she leaned on the walking stick and said, “Is that so?” “Adam Hauptman, the Columbia Basin Pack’s Alpha, has named Mercy his mate,” continued Samuel grimly. Nemane smiled suddenly, the expression flowing across her face, giving it a delicate beauty I hadn’t noticed before. “I like you,” she said to me. “You play an underhanded and subtle game—and like Coyote, you shake up the order of the world.” She laughed. “Coyote indeed. Good for you. Good for you. I don’t know what else you’ll run into—but I’ll let the Others know what they are dealing with.” She tapped the walking stick on the floor twice. Then, almost to herself, she murmured, “Perhaps…perhaps this won’t be a disaster after all.
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Patricia Briggs (Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson, #3))
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Finally, the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, rose to speak. Wilberforce had been briefed (or so it is generally assumed) by the ardent anti-Darwinian Richard Owen, who had been a guest in his home the night before. As nearly always with events that end in uproar, accounts of what exactly transpired vary widely. In the most popular version, Wilberforce, when properly in flow, turned to Huxley with a dry smile and demanded of him whether he claimed attachment to the apes by way of his grandmother or grandfather.
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Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
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Just here, Lucy, I laid down my pen, and stept to the glass, to see whether I could not please myself with a wise frown or two; at least with a solemnity of countenance, that, occasionally, I might dash with it my childishness of look; which certainly encouraged this freedom of Miss Barnevelt. But I could not please myself. My muscles have never been used to any-thing but smiling: So favoured, so beloved, by every one of my dear friends; an heart so grateful for all their favours — How can I learn now to frown; or even long to look grave?
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Samuel Richardson (Complete Works of Samuel Richardson)
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In religion she was, I should think, as nearly a freethinker as anyone could be whose mind seldom turned upon the subject. She went to church, but disliked equally those who aired either religion or irreligion. I remember once hearing her press a late well-known philosopher to write a novel instead of pursuing his attacks upon religion. The philosopher did not much like this, and dilated upon the importance of showing people the folly of much that they pretended to believe. She smiled and said demurely, “Have they not Moses and the prophets? Let
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Samuel Butler (Complete Works of Samuel Butler)
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Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life, son."
Bill Forrester was smiling quietly at him.
"I know," said Grandpa, "I talk too much."
"There's no one I'd rather hear."
"Lecture continued, then. Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. As Samuel Spaulding, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.' Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. End of lecture. Besides, a mess of dandelion greens is good eating once in a while.
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Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine)
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Wow. she is pretty,' Laila said. Her voice stuttered across the last word. The original thought had been, Wow she is hot, and the sentence had transformed on the way out. Laila couldn't talk about anybody like that. Not even her celebrity crushes, not even avatar of perfection Samuel Marquez. A barrier of shame as impermeable as plexiglas walled her off from everything sexual, every thought, every action, even something as small as the difference in connotation between 'pretty' and 'hot.' Hannah had teased her about this once and had stopped when Laila didn't come close to smiling. Her inexperience didn't feel charming or virtuous, like she was some good-girl persona from a movie. It felt furious and heated, humiliating and childish, as if physicality were a language she was supposed to have learned, and here she was in senior year, surrounded by a horde of native speakers, unable to translate the most basic concepts.
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Riley Redgate (Final Draft)
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With a crooked smile on his face, he leaned down so his lips brushed my ear. “No doesn’t mean shit to me, baby girl.” He followed his words with a sharp bite to my earlobe that sent a jolt of pleasure pulsing through my body, tightening my nipples which rubbed painfully against my shirt. A tightening sensation ripped through my lower stomach and I felt a flushing from my core. Preppy abruptly pulled his hand from inside my shorts, obviously aware and probably repulsed at whatever had just happened down there. My face reddened when he held up his glistening fingers and stared at it in wonderment, shocking me even further when he licked his palm slowly, from wrist to fingertip, closing his eyes and groaning. “That was the best NO I’ve ever fucking tasted,” he said, and without another word he was yanking down my shorts and underwear in one move, before climbing back up my body so we were again eye to eye, his hand back between my legs.
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T.M. Frazier (Preppy: The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater, Part One (King, #5))
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You weren’t supposed to choose me,” he said.
Behind them, Ira approached, stunned and speechless for what must have been the first time in his life. He helped lift Samuel, whose cheeks had blanched as well. Camille prodded Oscar’s arms and stomach and face. It was truly him. The unbearable grief over losing him flipped inside out. Her joy ran so deep and strong she thought she might burst from it.
“The night the Christina went down, you rowed to me,” she answered, her throat knotted as she thought of her father. She forced it down. “This time, I must have needed to row to you.”
Oscar kissed her, his lips still cold but filled with life. She leaned into him and hung on as though he might disappear. Ira let out a playful high-pitched whistle. Samuel coughed. Oscar and Camille reluctantly pulled apart and blushed.
“Holy gallnipper,” Ira said. Camille grinned, not minding in the least that he was using that annoying turn of phrase again. “I can’t believe that little rock…I mean you were dead, mate. Dead as this bloke right here.” Ira kicked McGreenery in the leg. Oscar nodded, rubbing his hand over the fading red mark, as if to feel for himself that the deadly wound was gone.
“I was in the dory,” he whispered. Ira cocked his head.
“Say again?”
Camille lifted her ear from his chest, where she’d wanted to listen to the smooth rhythm of his heart. She looked up at him before hearing its strong beat.
“The dory?”
Oscar nodded again, eyebrows creased.
“I heard your voice. At the cave,” he said to Camille. “This force kept pulling me backward, away from you, like I was being sucked into the ground.”
So this was how it had felt for him to die. She remembered the way he’d looked right through her and how it had chilled her to the marrow. Her own brush with death had been different, and somehow better, if death could even be measured in levels of bad or good. The image of her father had drawn her to safety, making her forget her yearning for air. He had been there for her, but she hadn’t been able to do the same for him. All this time, all this trouble, and all she’d wanted was to bring him back, make him proud of the lengths to which she’d gone for him. In the end, she’d failed him miserably.
“And then you were gone. Your voice faded, and I was in the dory, adrift in the Tasman, the dawn after the Christina went down,” Oscar continued.
Samuel and Ira glanced at each other with marked expressions of doubt and confusion.
“But I wasn’t alone.” He gently pulled Camille away from him and gripped her arms. “Your father was with me. He was sitting there, smiling. It all seemed so real. I could taste the salt air, and…and I remember touching the water, and it was cold. It wasn’t like in a dream, when you can’t do those things.”
Camille sucked in a deep breath, trying to inflate her crushing lungs. Oscar had seen him, too. She’d give anything to see her father again, to hear his voice, to feel at home by just being in his presence. At least, that’s what she’d once believed. But Camille hadn’t been willing to give up Oscar. Did that mean she loved her father less? Never. She could never love her fatherless. So then why hadn’t her heart chosen him?
"Did he say anything?" she asked, anxious to know yet afraid to hear.
"It's all jumbled," Oscar said, again shaking his head and rubbing his chest. "I remember him saying a few things. Bits and pieces."
Camille looked to Ira and Samuel. Their parted mouths and bugged eyes hung on Oscar's every word. Oscar squinted at the ground and seemed to be working hard to piece together what her father had said on the other side.
"I'm still here to guide her?" he said, questioning his own memory. "It doesn't make any sense, I'm sorry."
She shook her head, eyes tearing up again. It had been real. He really had come to her in the black water of the underground pool.
"No, don't be sorry," she said, tears spilling. "It does make sense. It makes sense to me.
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Angie Frazier (Everlasting (Everlasting, #1))
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Didn’t I advise you to forget the stone? Didn’t I tell you it would be mine? Look at everything you’ve lost.” He threw the sack over the ornate teal stone, pulled a cord tight around the sack’s opening, and lifted it from its resting place without placing a single finger on it. “And look at everything I’ve gained.”
His sailors laughed with him. Camille spotted her straggly-beared attacker. A fist-sized bruise from Samuel’s boot discolored his jaw. Camille discreetly scanned the cascade, but didn’t see Ira or Samuel. She returned her stare to McGreenery; only this time, it was she who smiled.
“I remember what you said. But I have the real map, don’t I?” She held it up for him to see as the second wave of sparks, invisible to everyone else, rolled back over the map and erased the riddle. “Samuel copied the diagram for you, but there were things the map wouldn’t show him. Things only the one worthy of the stone could see. And he overlooked something else, something he had no reason to believe was important.”
McGreenery came around the shrine, the sack’s cord cutting so deeply into his flesh, the skin whitened. Camille twirled the map around to show the glowing mark.
“This is the mark of Umandu.” She stepped aside so he could see the amber stone aglow at her heel. Shock drowned McGreenery’s simper. “And you can go to hell.
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Angie Frazier (Everlasting (Everlasting, #1))
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Chase Weston is the golden guy center, all warm brown eyes and panty-melting smile, of the Sea Dogs. Ryker Samuels is the dark-haired, bearded, and broody-as-sin defenseman on the Avengers.
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Lauren Blakely (Double Pucked (My Hockey Romance, #1))
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Mr Biswas saw himself in many Samuel Smiles heroes: he was young, he was poor, and he fancied he was struggling. But there always came a point when resemblance ceased. The heroes had rigid ambitions and lived in countries where ambitions could be pursued and had a meaning. He had no ambition, and in this hot land, apart from opening a shop or buying a motorbus, what could he do? What could he invent?
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V.S. Naipaul (A House For Mr Biswas)
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The real miracle is that I didn't kill anybody else.” “Or go to jail for a long time.” “Yeah. Lucky, I guess.” “Or white.” He smiled. “That, too.
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Barbara Samuel (A Piece of Heaven)
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He’d played a nasty prank on Jacob earlier that day. Jacob couldn’t remember it now. He’d crept up carefully and spun around, feeling the fart rising in his belly. Paul had glanced up from his comic casually. He had no idea what was about to happen. Jacob had sat on his brother’s thigh and let one rip. It had been loud and wet, echoing through the house with a big poot. He’d gotten his ass kicked hard for that one, but he’d ended the beating with a smile, knowing Paul could never exact a proper revenge.
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Samuel Small (The Well: A Haunted House Horror Novel (The Well Series Book 1))
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When he pulled in, Melissa was in the yard, playing with some dolls. She looked up and held them to her chest. Jacob was sure to emphasize his beaming smile when he stepped out of the car, nodding softly to her.
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Samuel Small (The Well: A Haunted House Horror Novel (The Well Series Book 1))
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The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feelings.’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Jan Karon (Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good (Mitford))
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If you needed to make her angry, bro, why didn't you just tell her how it was really you who took away all her freedoms? Not her shitty excuse of an absent father. Although, in fairness, it barely took any effort at all to make him dance to our tune." Archer hit the cool down button on the machine and slowed his pace before turning and jumping off the end. He gave me a smug, patronizing smile as I just stood there in shock with my mouth ajar. "The whole forced committal thing, though? That was all Samuel. He sure does have a hard-on for having your legal rights stripped, Princess. Not that it'd benefit him even if they were.
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Tate James (Liar (Madison Kate, #2))
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After all, I am not just his protégé. I owe my life to Samuel. I am his one moment of mercy. In one hundred and seventy-two killings, I am the only person he ever saved. The gurney squeaks behind me. I twist around to watch the EMTs rolling out a body covered with a sheet. I turn back to Samuel and he smiles. One hundred and seventy-three.
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Brynne Weaver (Black Sheep)
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Good managers succeed because of, not in spite of, their teams and raise their game by raising the game of the whole team, not by distancing themselves from them in pointing out their errors.
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Tim Phillips (Strategy Power Plays: Winning business ideas from the world's greatest strategic minds: Sun Tzu, Niccolo Machiavelli and Samuel Smiles (Infinite Success))
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On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coarseness, and selfishness, they will unconsciously assume the same character, and grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called civilised life. "Give your child to be educated by a slave," said an ancient Greek, "and instead of one slave, you will then have two." The child cannot help imitating what he sees. Everything is to him a model—of manner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of character. "For the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of childhood, when he begins to colour and mould himself by companionship with others.
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Samuel Smiles (Character)