Quotes from Horace Mann

Republics, one after another . . . have perished from a want of intelligence and virtue in the masses of the people. . . .

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.

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

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

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

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.

Knowledge is a mimic creation.

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

Education is an organic necessity of a human being.

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.

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.

When will society, like a mother, take care of all her children?

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.

In trying to teach children a great deal in a short time, they are treated not as though the race they were to run was for life, but simply a three-mile heat.

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.

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

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

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

We must be purposely kind and generous or we miss the best part of life's existence.

If you wish to write well, study the life about you,--life in the public streets.

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.

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.

Of all "rights" which command attention at the present time among us, woman's rights seem to take precedence.

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