No Pains, No Gains

There is scarcely anyone who hasn't heard the proverb,"No pains, no gains." It means that we cannot achieve success in anything without effort and sacrifice. At first sight, this may seem to be not quite true, for we can think of examples of people who have gained much without any trouble to themselves. A man who happens to have been born the son of millionaire will get great wealth on the death of his father without any effort on his part, and people sometimes win the large sum of money in a lottery without the slightest effort. But such cases of luck are exceptional, and cannot be counted on. For most people, it remains true that success can be won only at the cost of hard work.





Useful words: scarcely , sacrifice , wealth , slight , exceptional .
Essential sentence pattern:
1.count on(=depend on;rely on)
He is a man of his word; you can count on him.
2.at the cost of (=at the expense of)
He fulfilled his mission at the cost of his own life.