Horace Mann Quotes & Sayings

On entering this world our starting-point is ignorance. None, however, but idiots remain there. — Horace Mann

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

To-day Massachusetts; and the whole of the American republic, from the border of Maine to the Pacific slopes, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, stand upon the immutable and everlasting principles of equal and exact justice. The days of unrequited labor are numbered with the past. Fugitive slave laws are only remembered as relics of that barbarism which John Wesley pronounced "the sum of all villainies," and whose knowledge of its blighting effects was matured by his travels in Georgia and the Carolinas. — Horace Mann

NO error is infused into the young mind, to lie there dormant, or to be reproduced only when the subject of thought or action recurs to which the error belongs; but the error becomes a model or archetype, after whose likeness the active powers of the mind create a thousand other errors. — Horace Mann

He who cannot resist temptation is not a man. — Horace Mann

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

As an apple is not in any proper sense an apple until it is ripe, so a human being is not in any proper sense a human being until he is educated. — Horace Mann

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

A house without books is like a room without windows. — Horace Mann

Man is improvable. Some people think he is only a machine, and that the only difference between a man and a mill is, that one is carried by blood and the other by water. — Horace Mann

Truths, no matter how momentous or enduring, are nothing to the individual until he appreciates them, and feels their force, and acknowledges their sovereignty. He cannot bow to their majesty until he sees their power. All the blind then, and all the ignorant
that is, all the children
must be educated up to the point of perceiving and admitting the truth, and acting according to its mandates. — Horace Mann

Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power. — Horace Mann

Love must be the same in all worlds. — Horace Mann

If any man seeks greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both. — Horace Mann

Deeds survive the doers. — Horace Mann

Keep one thing in view forever- the truth; and if you do this, though it may seem to lead you away from the opinion of men, it will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God. — Horace Mann

New constellations of truth are daily discovered in the firmament of knowledge, and new stars are daily shining forth in each constellation. — Horace Mann

Forts, arsenals, garrisons, armies, navies, are means of security and defence, which were invented in half-civilized times and in feudal or despotic countries; but schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications, and if they are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach. — Horace Mann

Finally, in regard to those who possess the largest shares in the stock of worldly goods, could there, in your opinion, be any police so vigilant and effetive, for the protections of all the rights of person, property and character, as such a sound and comprehensive education and training, as our system of Common Schools could be made to impart; and would not the payment of a sufficient tax to make such education and training universal, be the cheapest means of self-protection and insurance? — Horace Mann

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

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. — Horace Mann

The living soul of man, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled. — Horace Mann

Evil and good are God's right hand and left. — Horace Mann

A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron. — Horace Mann

Avoid witticisms at the expense of others. — Horace Mann

Those who exert the first influence upon the mind have the greatest power. — Horace Mann

If you wish to write well, study the life about you,
life in the public streets. — Horace Mann

Both poetry and philosophy are prodigal of eulogy over the mind which ransoms itself by its own energy from a captivity to custom, which breaks the common bounds of empire, and cuts a Simplon over mountains of difficulty for its own purposes, whether of good or of evil. — Horace Mann

Be careful never to retire to rest in a room not properly ventilated. — Horace Mann

The false man is more false to himself than to any one else. He may despoil others, but himself is the chief loser. The world's scorn he might sometimes forget, but the knowledge of his own perfidy is undying. — Horace Mann

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

Spurn not at seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth; And beware of seeming truths that grow on the roots of error. — Horace Mann

If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it. — Horace Mann

Under the sublime law of progress, the present outgrows the past. The great heart of humanity is heaving with the hopes of a brighter day. All the higher instincts of our nature prophesy its approach; and the best intellects of the race are struggling to turn that prophecy into fulfilment. — Horace Mann

Ideality is the avant-courier of the mind. — Horace Mann

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former. — Horace Mann

A republican form of government, without intelligence in the people, must be, on a vast scale, what a mad-house, without superintendent or keepers, would be on a small one. — Horace Mann

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. — Horace Mann

There is nothing so costly as ignorance. — Horace Mann

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

We conceive of immortality as having a beginning, but no end; but we conceive of eternity as having neither beginning nor end. Hence it is proper to speak of eternity as the attribute of God, but of immortality as the attribute of man. — Horace Mann

As each generation comes into the world devoid of knowledge, its first duty is to obtain possession of the stores already amassed. It must overtake its predecessors before it can pass by them. — Horace Mann

There is not a good work which the hand of man has ever undertaken, which his heart has ever conceived, which does not require a good education for its helper. — Horace Mann

If you can express yourself so as to be perfectly understood in ten words, never use a dozen. — Horace Mann

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals. — Horace Mann

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

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 brace every muscle to its highest tension. — Horace Mann

When the panting and thirsting soul first drinks the delicious waters of truth, when the moral and intellectual tastes and desires first seize the fragrant fruits that flourish in the garden of knowledge, then does the child catch a glimpse and foretaste of heaven. — Horace Mann

Education is an organic necessity of a human being. — Horace Mann

The most precious wine is produced upon the sides of volcanoes. Now bold and inspiring ideals are only born of a clear head that stands over a glowing heart. — Horace Mann

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

Ignorance has been well represented under the similitude of a dungeon, where, though it is full of life, yet darkness and silence reign. But in society the bars and locks have been broken; the dungeon itself is demolished; the prisoners are out; they are in the midst of us. We have no security but to teach and renovate them. — Horace Mann

We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital. — Horace Mann

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. — Horace Mann

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. — Horace Mann

Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. — Horace Mann

Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time. — Horace Mann

Praise begets emulation,
a goodly seed to sow among youthful students. — Horace Mann

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

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. — Horace Mann

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

Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected. — Horace Mann

Benevolence is a world of itself
a world which mankind, as yet, have hardly begun to explore. We have, as it were, only skirted along its coasts for a few leagues, without penetrating the recesses, or gathering the riches of its vast interior. — Horace Mann

In what pagan nation was Moloch ever propitiated by such an unbroken and swift-moving procession of victims as are offered to this Moloch of Christendom, intemperance. — Horace Mann

To know the machine one must know where each part belongs, and what its office is. — Horace Mann

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

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. — Horace Mann

A teacher should, above all things, first induce a desire in the pupil for the acquisition he wishes to impart. — Horace Mann

Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care. — Horace Mann

Whatever statesman or sage will effect reforms upon a gigantic or godlike scale must begin with the young. — Horace Mann

Much that we call evil is really good in disguises; and we should not quarrel rashly with adversities not yet understood, nor overlook the mercies often bound up in them. — Horace Mann

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

Teaching isn't one-tenth as effective as training. — Horace Mann

Patient perseverance in well doing is infinitely harder than a sudden and impulsive self-sacrifice. — Horace Mann

He who dethrones the idea of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead. — Horace Mann

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. — Horace Mann

The earth flourishes, or is overrun with noxious weeds and brambles, as we apply or withhold the cultivating hand. So fares it with the intellectual system of man. — Horace Mann

We do ourselves the most good doing something for others. — Horace Mann

Thank Heaven, the female heart is untenantable by atheism. — Horace Mann

Let the Common School be expanded to its capabilities, let it be worked with the efficiency of which it is susceptible, and nine tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged; men would walk more safely by day; every pillow would be more inviolate by night; property, life, and character held by a stronger tenure; all rational hopes respecting the future brightened. — Horace Mann

Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School, improved and energized, as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization. Two reasons sustain this position. In the first place, there is a universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever ... And, in the second place, the materials upon which it operates are so pliant and ductile as to be susceptible of assuming a greater variety of forms than any other earthly work of the Creator. — Horace Mann

Willmott has very tersely said that embellished truths are the illuminated alphabet of larger children. — Horace Mann

Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science. — Horace Mann

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

Man ... has an inborn religious sentiment that whispers of a God to his inmost soul, as a shell taken from the deep yet echoes forever the ocean's roar. — Horace Mann

Knowledge is but an instrument, which the profligate and the flagitious may use as well as the brave and the just. — Horace Mann

I look upon Phrenology as the guide to philosophy and the handmaid of Christianity. Whoever disseminates true Phrenology is a public benefactor. — Horace Mann

An ignorant man is always able to say yes or no immediately to any proposition. To a wise man, comparatively few things can be propounded which do not require a response with qualifications, with discriminations, with proportion. — Horace Mann

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. — Horace Mann

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. — Horace Mann

Let the public mind become corrupt, and all efforts to secure property, liberty, or life by the force of laws written on paper will be as vain as putting up a sign in an apple orchard to exclude canker worms. — Horace Mann

In our country and in our times no man is worthy the honored name of statesman who does not include the highest practicable education of the people in all his plans of administration. He may have eloquence, he may have a knowledge of all history, diplomacy, jurisprudence; and by these he might claim, in other countries, the elevated rank of a statesman: but unless he speaks, plans, labors, at all times and in all places, for the culture and edification of the whole people, he is not, he cannot be, an American statesman. — Horace Mann

The pulpit only "teaches" to be honest; the market-place "trains" to overreaching and fraud; and teaching has not a tithe of the efficiency of training. Christ never wrote a tract, but He went about doing good. — Horace Mann

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

The most formidable attribute of temptation is its increasing power, its accelerating ratio of velocity. Every act of repetition increases power, diminishes resistance. It is like the letting out of waters-where a drop can go, a river can go. Whoever yields to temptation, subjects himself to the law of falling bodies. — Horace Mann

In dress, seek the middle between foppery and shabbiness. — Horace Mann

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

So multifarious are the different classes of truths, and so multitudinous the truths in each class, that it may be undoubtingly affirmed that no man has yet lived who could so much as name all the different classes and subdivisions of truths, and far less anyone who was acquainted with all the truths belonging to any one class. What wonderful extent, what amazing variety, what collective magnificence! And if such be the number of truths pertaining to this tiny ball of earth, how must it be in the incomprehensible immensity! — Horace Mann

Every event in this world is the effect of some precedent cause, and also the cause of some subsequent effect. — Horace Mann