SaturdaySep 26, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 - August 2, 1859) was an American education reformer and abolitionist. He was also a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
He was a brother-in-law to author Nathaniel Hawthorne, since their wives were sisters.
In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind speak of color.
It is well when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truths already discovered amongst the multitudes. Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power; and while a philosopher is discovering one new truth, millions of truths may be propagated amongst the people.... The whole land must be watered with the streams of knowledge.
One thing I certainly never was made for, and that is to put principles on and off at the dictation of a party, as a lackey changes his livery at his master's command.
Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a persons money as his time.
Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.
Lost, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, sixty golden minutes. Each set with sixty diamond seconds. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.
Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear.
The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us; they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its vast numbers; to look upon our vast natural resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as means to be converted, by the refining alchemy of education, into mental and spiritual treasuresand thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power.
Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of man, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.
Deeds survive the doers.
A house without books is like a room without windows.
A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on a cold iron.
If evil is inevitable, how are the wicked accountable? Nay, why do we call men wicked at all? Evil is inevitable, but is also remediable.
Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, At once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.
It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.
You need not tell the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it all. But let all you tell be truth.
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