Quotes from Tryon Edwards

Common sense is, of all kinds, the most uncommon. It implies good judgment, sound discretion, and true and practical wisdom applied to common life.

Indolence is the dry rot of even a good mind and a good character; the practical uselessness of both. It is the waste of what might be a happy and useful life.

This world is the land of the dying; the next is the land of the living.

To rejoice in another's prosperity is to give content to your lot; to mitigate another's grief is to alleviate or dispel your own

The great end of education is, to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.

The most we can get out of life is its discipline for ourselves, and its usefulness for others.

He that never changes his opinion never corrects mistakes and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.

Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and place, and you will not only accomplish more, but have far more leisure than those who are always hurrying.

Let your holidays be associated with great public events, and they may be the life of patriotism as well as a source of relaxation and personal employment.

Seek for duty, and happiness will follow as the shadow comes with the sunshine.

Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy.

He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.

Anecdotes are sometimes the best vehicles of truth, and if striking and appropriate are often more impressive and powerful than argument.

Sincerity is not test of truth-no evidence of correctness of conduct. You may take poison sincerely believing it the needed medicine, but will it save your life?

He that is possessed with a prejudice is possessed with a devil, and one of the worst kinds of devils, for it shuts out the truth, and often leads to ruinous error.

Unbelief, in distinction from disbelief, is a confession of ignorance where honest inquiry might easily find the truth. - "Agnostic" is but the Greek for "ignoramus."

Deviation from either truth or duty is a downward path.

Hell is truth seen too lateduty neglected in its season.

Credulity is belief in slight evidence, with no evidence, or against evidence.

Facts are God's arguments; we should be careful never to misunderstand or pervert them.

Some of the best lessons we ever learn we learn from our mistakes and failures. — The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.

Apothegms are the wisdom of the past condensed for the instruction and guidance of the present.

What we gave, we have; What we spent, we had; What we left, we lost.

Nature hath nothing made so base, but can read some instruction to the wisest man.