It is well to think well. It is divine to act well.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Character
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: Education, Society
To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Charity
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
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, Correction, Children
It is more difficult, and calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.
—Horace Mann
I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a great deal about their acts.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Action
Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Prison, School, Education, Punishment
Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Enjoyment
It would be more honorable to our distinguished ancestors to praise them in words less, but in deeds to imitate them more.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Ancestry
Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.
—Horace Mann
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
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
The object of punishment is the prevention of evil; it can never be made impulsive to good.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Punishment
We put things in order; God does the rest. Lay an iron bar east and west,—it is not magnetized. Lay it north and south, and it is.
—Horace Mann
Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Charity, Affectation
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: Time Management, Value of Time, Time
Let there be an entire abstinence from intoxicating drinks throughout this country during the period of a single generation, and a mob would be as impossible as combustion without oxygen.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Drunkenness
Seek not greatness, but seek truth and you will find both.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Truth
Observation-activity of both eyes and ears.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Observation
Just in proportion as a man becomes good, divine, Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing into the region of benevolent activities.—It is good to think well; it is divine to act well.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Benevolence, Action
Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Defects, Ignorance
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: Morals, Law, Morality
Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
—Horace Mann
Topics: One liners, Manners
Teaching isn’t one-tenth as effective as training.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Teachers, Teaching
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Posterity, Truth, Greatness
Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Genius
Avoid witicisms at the expense of others.
—Horace Mann
Topics: Wit, Women, Humor, Mathematics, Teamwork, Legacy, Success & Failure
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Anne Sullivan Macy American Educator
- Mortimer J. Adler American Philosopher, Educator
- Frank Moore Colby American Writer, Editor
- Robert Maynard Hutchins American Author, Academic
- Booker T. Washington African-American Educationist
- Robert H. Shaffer American Educator
- Laurence J. Peter American Author
- E. Merrill Root American Educator, Poet
- John Quincy Adams American Head of State
- Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney American Poet
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