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Audiobook edition · 15 h 50 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if steady effort matters more than brilliance, wealth, or the rank you are born into?
In Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance, Samuel Smiles draws lessons from engineers, potters, painters, scientists, merchants and statesmen. James Watt studies and repairs as he develops his work on the steam engine. Bernard Palissy pursues a white enamel for earthenware. Their efforts bring Smiles's central question into focus: how do people turn difficulty into progress?
Against a Victorian world of changing factories, railways and cities, Smiles argues that improvement begins with the individual. He asks you to consider patience, thrift, courage and honest dealing as habits to practise, not qualities to admire from afar. His short life stories make a forceful case for character over rank, and steady application over flashes of talent.
What you’ll discover
- Patience at the workbench Follow Watt and Palissy as Smiles explores the effort behind invention and craft.
- Effort beyond quick brilliance Consider why Smiles values sustained application more highly than talent alone.
- Small chances worth noticing Explore his argument that an alert mind finds opportunity in ordinary things.
- Money with a purpose Examine thrift alongside warnings against greed and the hunger for quick wealth.
- Character before social rank Meet an ideal of worth grounded in honesty, kindness, courage and consideration.
Who will love it
For readers who welcome steady encouragement to persevere toward a goal, and anyone curious about Victorian ideas of progress. The lives of inventors, artists and working people offer concrete examples of courage, thrift, honest dealing and growth.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Real progress begins with the individual
- Great inventors rise from the workshop
- Patience through failure builds lasting success
- Steady application beats flashy talent
- Small opportunities reward the watchful mind
- Energy and courage carry a plan through
- Money should serve you, not rule you
- Learning and good examples shape the self
- Character is the true measure of a person
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- 15-minute summary
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Self-Help : avec des exemples de conduite et de persévérance
by Samuel Smiles · 1859
Palissy feeds his floorboards to the furnace as Smiles explores how perseverance and character shape a life.
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In short
In 1859 a Scottish doctor and journalist named Samuel Smiles published a book of lessons drawn from the lives of working people who rose by their own effort. It grew out of talks he had given to young men in Leeds who met to improve their minds in the evenings.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Real progress begins with the individual
Smiles opens with a maxim he calls well tried, that heaven helps those who help themselves. He claims it holds the results of vast human experience in a few words. His point is that outside help, however kind, tends to weaken the person who receives it, while effort made by oneself strengthens that person. A man who is carried never learns to walk.
From there he makes a larger claim about nations. Good government, he argues, is mostly the reflection of the people who live under it. A country of industrious, honest and sober citizens will in time have good laws, and a country of idle ones will get bad laws whatever its constitution says. Laws can remove obstacles, but they cannot make anyone climb.
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What is Self Help by Samuel Smiles about?
It argues that individuals, not governments, drive progress. Smiles supports this with short life stories of inventors, artists, scientists and businessmen who rose through patience, hard work, thrift and honesty, and he offers their habits as a guide for ordinary readers.
When was Self Help written and is it based on real people?
Smiles published it in 1859, after giving talks to young working men in Leeds. It is not a novel. Its examples are real people, such as George Stephenson, Josiah Wedgwood and Bernard Palissy, drawn from biographies and histories.
What is the main message of Self Help?
The main message is that effort, perseverance and good character matter more than birth or luck. Smiles holds that people who help themselves improve their own lives and, taken together, strengthen their nation.
The author
Samuel Smiles
1812–1904 · Scottish writer and journalist
Samuel Smiles was a Scottish writer and journalist born in Haddington in 1812. He trained as a doctor and later worked in journalism and railway administration. He published Self-Help in 1859 and A Boy’s Voyage Round the World in 1871. He lived in Leeds and London, where he died in 1904.
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