The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained form actual life is of the nat… - Samuel Smiles

"Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.

Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.

It is not then how much a man may know that is of importance, but the end and purpose for which he knows it (p.299).