Inspirational Quotes by Horace Mann (American Educator)

In such a world as ours the idle man is not so much a biped as a bivalve; and the wealth which breeds idleness, of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country, is only a sort of human oyster bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worms’ banquet.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Idleness

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Value of Time, Time, Time Management

The devil tempts men through their ambition, their cupidity or their appetite, until he comes to the profane swearer, whom he catches without any bait or reward.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Profanity

Biography, especially of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study.—Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Biography

It is well to think well. It is divine to act well.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Character

When a child can be brought to tears, and not from fear of punishment, but from repentance he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from the grief of their conduct you can be sure there is an angel nestling in their heart.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Reform, Children, Correction

Let but the public mind once become thoroughly corrupt, and all attempts to secure property, liberty, or life, by mere force of laws written on parchment, will be as vain as to put up printed notices in an orchard to keep off canker-worms.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Morality, Morals, Law

To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Charity

A human being is not, in any proper sense, a human being till he is educated.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Education

Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Time Management, Value of Time, Reading

Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance-wheel of the social machinery.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Society, Education

Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, sharp cry of “Fire!” under our windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and rouse every muscle to its highest tension.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Temptation

A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Education

I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a great deal about their acts.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Action

Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate
—Horace Mann
Topics: Genius

If temperance prevails, then education can prevail; if temperance fails, then education must fail.
—Horace Mann

Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Progress, Truth

Teaching isn’t one-tenth as effective as training.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Teachers, Teaching

Avoid witicisms at the expense of others.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Legacy, Success & Failure, Wit, Humor, Women, Mathematics, Teamwork

I restrict myself within bounds in saying, that, so far as I have observed in this life, ten men have failed from defect in morals where one has failed from defect in intellect.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Morality

Ideality is only the avant-courier of the mind, and where that, in a healthy and normal state goes, I hold it to be a prophecy that realization can follow.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Ideals

The object of punishment is the prevention of evil; it can never be made impulsive to good.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Punishment

It is more difficult, and calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.
—Horace Mann

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.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Principles, Party

Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Enjoyment

Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Defects, Ignorance

Habit is a cable.—We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Habit, Habits

You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it all. But let all you tell be truth.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Truth

So, in the infinitely nobler battle in which you are engaged against error and wrong, if ever repulsed or stricken down, may you always be solaced and cheered by the exulting cry of triumph over some abuse in Church or State, some vice or folly in society, some false opinion or cruelty or guilt which you have overcome! And I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Victory, Helping, Humanity, Giving, Compassion, Kindness

The pulpit teaches to be honest, the marketplace trains to overreaching and fraud—Teaching has not a tithe of the efficacy of example and training.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Example

Observation-activity of both eyes and ears.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Observation

Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.
—Horace Mann

False conclusions which have been reasoned out are infinitely worse than blind impulse.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Decisions

Schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Education

Above all, let the poor hang up the amulet of temperance in their homes.
—Horace Mann

The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Teaching, Teachers

The greatest service we can perform for others is to help them to help themselves.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Self-Discovery

Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Opinion, Opinions

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
—Horace Mann
Topics: One liners, Manners

Astronomy is one of the sublimest fields of human investigation. The mind that grasps its facts and principles receives something of the enlargement and grandeur belonging to the science itself.—It is a quickener of devotion.
—Horace Mann

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