Samuel Smiles Quotes about Wisdom

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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.

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

Inspirational, Wisdom, Mistake

1859 Self-Help, ch.11.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Samuel Smiles

Wisdom, Nature, Book

Samuel Smiles (2014). “Self-Help”, p.258, Cambridge University Press

The knowledge and experience which produce wisdom can only become a man's individual possession and property by his own free action; and it is as futile to expect these without laborious, painstaking effort, as it is to hope to gather a harvest where the seed has not been sown.

Samuel Smiles

Wisdom, Men, Effort

Samuel Smiles (1861). “Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct”, p.32

Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.

Samuel Smiles

Wisdom, Real, School

Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.343

Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry.

Samuel Smiles

Wisdom, Perseverance, Journey

Samuel Smiles (2009). “Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct”, p.462, The Floating Press