Self-Help: The Original Guide to Bootstrapping Your Success - Softcover

Smiles, Samuel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486813037 ISBN 13: 9780486813035

Verlag: Dover Publications Inc., 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Author Samuel Smiles coined the phrase&#160;self-help with this bestseller, originally published in 1859. Smiles envisions a world in which the lowliest members of a community can reach the heights of society through merit and hard work. A firm believer in the value of sustained effort, he emphasizes the pleasure of engaging in self-improvement for its own sake rather than strictly as a means to worldly advancement. The capacity of work well done to ennoble the life of any man, however humble, is Smiles' main thesis, illustrated with examples of wisdom gleaned from the biographies of notable self-starters. <br>Written at the close of the Industrial Revolution, this book was influenced by the technological advances of the previous century, in which new manufacturing processes and scientific advances enabled greater accomplishments by determined, hard-working individuals. Citing incidents from the lives of prominent inventors and entrepreneurs, Smiles exhorts readers to draw upon their internal resources to get ahead in the world. The book celebrates the traits of perseverance and ingenuity, advocating in self-belief despite hardships and failures, with many illustrations of the value of patience and optimism. The founding work of the self-help movement, this volume retains the capacity to inspire.

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<div>Samuel Smiles (1812&#8211;1904) was the father of the modern self-help movement, originating the much-used term with this 1859 publication. A prominent Victorian liberal, he advocated for universal suffrage among men. Smiles' frustration with the limits of government action, however, aroused his interest in motivating individuals to independently transform their lives. </div>

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<div></div><p>Author Samuel Smiles coined the phrase&#160;self-help with this bestseller, which was originally published in 1859. Smiles envisions a world in which the lowliest members of a community can reach the heights of society through merit and hard work. A firm believer in the value of sustained effort, he emphasizes the pleasure of engaging in self-improvement for its own sake rather than strictly as a means to worldly advancement. The capacity of work well done to ennoble the life of any man, however humble, is Smiles' main thesis, which he illustrates with examples of wisdom gleaned from the biographies of notable self-starters. <br>Written at the close of the Industrial Revolution, this book was influenced by the technological advances of the previous century, in which new manufacturing processes and scientific advances enabled greater accomplishments by determined, hard-working individuals. Citing incidents from the lives of prominent inventors and entrepreneurs, Smiles exhorts readers to draw upon their internal resources to get ahead in the world. The book celebrates the traits of perseverance and ingenuity, advocating in self-belief despite hardships and failures, with many illustrations of the value of patience and optimism. The founding work of the self-help movement, this volume retains the capacity to inspire. <br><a href="http://www.doverpublications.com/"><b>www.doverpublications.com</b></a></p>

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Selp-Help: The Original Guide to Bootstrapping Your Success

By Samuel Smiles

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 2017 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-486-81303-5

Contents

I. SELF-HELP — NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL, 1, 
II. LEADERS OF INDUSTRY — INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS, 24, 
III. THREE GREAT POTTERS — PALISSY, BÖTTIGER, WEDGWOOD, 58, 
IV. APPLICATION AND PERSEVERANCE, 81, 
V. HELPS AND OPPORTUNITIES — SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS, 102, 
VI. WORKERS IN ART, 134, 
VII. INDUSTRY AND THE PEERAGE, 176, 
VIII. ENERGY AND COURAGE, 194, 
IX. MEN OF BUSINESS, 216, 
X. MONEY — ITS USE AND ABUSE, 239, 
XI. SELF-CULTURE — FACILITIES AND DIFFICULTIES, 260, 
XII. EXAMPLE — MODELS, 300, 
XIII. CHARACTER — THE TRUE GENTLEMAN, 320, 

CHAPTER 1

SELF-HELP — NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL

The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. — J. S. Mill

We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men. — B. Disraeli

"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 vigor 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.

Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the most they can do is to leave him free to develop himself and improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has usually been much over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part of a legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise but little active influence upon any man's life and character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly understood that the function of government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable principally into protection — protection of life, liberty, and property. Laws wisely administered will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.

The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will, in the long run, be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and government as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the outgrowth of man's own perverted life; and though we may endeavor to cut them down and extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of personal life and character are radically improved. If this view be correct, then it follows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist not so much in altering laws and modifying institutions as in helping and stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free and independent individual action.

It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst every thing 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 or of institutions; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails that liberty solely depends upon and consists in government, so long will such changes, no matter at what cost they may be effected, have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting of the figures in a phantasmagoria.

The solid foundations of liberty must rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure guarantee for social security and national progress. John Stuart Mill truly observes that "even despotism does not produce its worst effects so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it be called."

Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning up. Some call for Cesars, others for nationalities, and others for acts of parliament. We are to wait for Cesars, and when they are found, "happy the people who recognize and follow them." This doctrine shortly means every thing for the people, nothing by them — a doctrine which, if taken as a guide, must, by destroying the free conscience of a community, speedily prepare the way for any form of despotism. Cesarism is human idolatry in its worst form — a worship of mere power, as degrading in its effects as the worship of mere wealth would be. A far healthier doctrine to inculcate among the nations would be that of self-help; and so soon as it is thoroughly understood and carried into action, Cesarism will be no more. The two principles are directly antagonistic; and what Victor Hugo said of the pen and the sword alike applies to them, "Ceci tuera cela." [This will kill that.]

The power of nationalities and acts of parliament is also a prevalent superstition. What William Dargan, one of Ireland's truest patriots, said at the closing of the first Dublin industrial exhibition may well be quoted now. "To tell the truth," he said, "I never heard the word independence mentioned that my own country and my own fellow-townsmen did not occur to my mind. I have heard a great deal about the independence that we were to get from this, that, and the other place, and of the great expectations we were to have from persons from other countries coming amongst us. Whilst I value as much as any man the great advantages that must result to us from that intercourse, I have always been deeply impressed with the feeling that our industrial independence is dependent upon ourselves. I believe that, with simple industry and careful exactness in the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Dover Publications Inc.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0486813037
• ISBN 13: 9780486813035
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar