Horace Mann Quotes - Page 7

Knowledge is a mimic creation.

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 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 treasures; ...and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power.

But let a man know that there are things to be known, of which he is ignorant, and it is so much carved out of his domain of universal knowledge.

Observation - activity of both eyes and ears.

It would be more honourable to our distinguished ancestors to praise them in words less, but in deeds to imitate them more.

Time is a seedfield; in youth we sow it with causes; in after life we reap the harvest of effects.

Give me a house furnished with books rather than furniture! Both, if you can, but books at any rate!

Every school boy and school girl who has arrived at the age of reflection ought to know something about the history of the art of printing.

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

We are prone to seek immediate pleasure or good, however small, rather than remote pleasure or good, however vast.

No combatants are so unequally matched as when one is shackled with error, while the other rejoices in the self-demonstrability of truth.

There is nothing derogatory in any employment which ministers to the well-being of the race. It is the spirit that is carried into an employment that elevates or degrades it.

Resistance to improvement contradicts the noblest instincts of the race. It begets its opposite. The fanaticism of reform is only the raging of the accumulated waters caused by the obstructions which an ultra conservatism has thrown across the stream of progress; and revolution itself is but the sudden overwhelming and sweeping away of impediments that should have been seasonably removed.

Every nerve that can thrill with pleasure, can also agonize with pain.

Knowledge has its boundary line, where it abuts on ignorance; on the outside of that boundary line are ignorance and miracles; on the inside of it are science and no miracles.

Love--that divine fire which was made to light and warm the temple of home--sometimes burns at unholy altars.

Even the choicest literature should be taken as the condiment, and not as the sustenance of life. It should be neither the warp nor the woof of existence, but only the flowery edging upon its borders.

Some languages are musical in themselves, so that it is pleasant to hear any one read or converse in them, even though we do not understand a word that we hear.... Others are full of growling, snarling, hissing sounds, as though wild beasts and serpents had first taught the people to speak.

Good books are to the young mind what the warming sun and the refreshing rain of spring are to the seeds which have lain dormant in the frosts of winter. They are more, for they may save from that which is worse than death, as well as bless with that which is better than life.

Common sense is better than genius, and hence its bestowment is more universal.

If ever there was a cause, if ever there can be a cause, worthy to be upheld by all of toil or sacrifice that the human heart can endure, it is the cause of Education. It has intrinsic and indestructible merits. It holds the welfare of mankind in its embrace, as the protecting arms of a mother hold her infant to her bosom. The very ignorance and selfishness which obstructs its path are the strongest arguments for its promotion, for it furnishes the only adequate means for their removal.

In dress, seek the middle between foppery and shabbiness.

Habit can overcome anything but instinct, and can greatly modify even that.

The earth endured Christ's ministry only three years;--not three weeks after his real character and purposes were generally known.

Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.