Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.

The line expresses Smiles’s characteristic Victorian ethic of self-help: while circumstances matter, a person’s choices, habits, and character substantially shape the quality and direction of their life. It implies an active, formative role for individual agency—life is not merely endured but made—through perseverance, self-discipline, and moral effort. The phrasing “to a large extent” is important: it concedes limits (luck, social conditions, health) yet insists that within those limits, personal conduct and initiative are decisive. In a quotations context, it functions as a succinct statement of Smiles’s broader argument that self-culture and steady effort can convert adversity into improvement.