Samuel Smiles：Self-Help, Excerpt 242

Self-respect, self-help, application, industry, integrity—all are of the nature of habits, not beliefs. Principles, in fact, are but the names which we assign to habits; for the principles are words, but the habits are the things themselves: benefactors or tyrants, according as they are good or evil. It thus happens that as we grow older, a portion of our free activity and individuality becomes suspended in habit; our actions become of the nature of fate; and we are bound by the chains which we have woven around ourselves.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/935
Locator：Excerpt 242 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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