Horace Mann Quotes

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

Education...beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men —the balance wheel of the social machinery...It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich; it prevents being poor.

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

Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.

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

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.

Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.

A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.

Observation - activity of both eyes and ears.

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

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

Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate

He who cannot resist temptation is not a man.

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

Teaching isn't one-tenth as effective as training.

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

Avoid witticisms at the expense of others.

Schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications.

Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power.

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.