Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 347

A man's daily life is the best test of his moral and social state. Take two men, for instance, both working at the same trade and earning the same money; yet how different they may be as respects their actual condition. The one looks a free man; the other a slave. The one lives in a snug cottage; the other in a mud hovel. The one has always a decent coat to his back; the other is in rags. The children of the one are clean, well dressed, and at school; the children of the other are dirty, filthy, and often in the gutter. The one possesses the ordinary comforts of life, as well as many of its pleasures and conveniences--perhaps a well-chosen library; the other has few of the comforts of life, certainly no pleasures, enjoyments, nor books. And yet these two men earn the same wages. What is the cause of the difference between them?

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 347 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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