United Kingdom, Author
December 23,
1812 – April, 16, 1904.
Samuel Smiles was a Scottish author and government reformer. Although he campaigned on a Chartist platform, he concluded that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His masterpiece, Self-Help (1859), promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism" and raised Smiles to celebrity status almost overnight.
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