Horace Mann

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

A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.

Ten men have failed from defect in morals, where one has failed from defect in intellect.

Physics is the Science of Matter; Metaphysics the Science of Mind — the Science of Being, apart from accidents and properties — Ontology.

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.

The laws of nature are sublime, but there is a moral sublimity before which the highest intelligences must kneel and adore. The laws by which the winds blow, and the tides of the ocean, like a vast clepsydra, measure, with inimitable exactness, the hours of ever-flowing time; the laws by which the planets roll, and the sun vivifies and paints; the laws which preside over the subtle combinations of chemistry, and the amazing velocities of electricity; the laws of germination and production in the vegetable and animal worlds, — all these, radiant with eternal beauty as they are, and exalted above all the objects of sense, still wane and pale before the Moral Glories that apparel the universe in their celestial light. The heart can put on charms which no beauty of known things, nor imagination of the unknown, can aspire to emulate. Virtue shines in native colors, purer and brighter than pearl, or diamond, or prism, can reflect. Arabian gardens in their bloom can exhale no such sweetness as charity diffuses. Beneficence is godlike, and he who does most good to his fellow-man is the Master of Masters, and has learned the Art of Arts. Enrich and embellish the universe as you will, it is only a fit temple for the heart that loves truth with a supreme love. Inanimate vastness excites wonder; knowledge kindles admiration, but love enraptures the soul. Scientific truth is marvellous, but moral truth is divine; and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light, has found the lost paradise. For him, a new heaven and a new earth have already been created. His home is the sanctuary of God, the Holy of Holies.

We put things in order — God does the rest. Lay an iron bar east and west, it is not magnetized. Lay it north and south and it is.

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

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.

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset...

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

God draweth straight lines but we call them crooked.

Whether a young man shall reap pleasure or pain from winning the objects of his choice, depends, not only upon his wisdom or folly in selecting those objects, but upon the right or wrong methods by which he pursues them. Hence, a knowledge what to select and how to pursue, is as necessary to the highest happiness as virtue herself. Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask of Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.

The intellectual and moral nature of man is the one thing precious in the sight of God; and therefore, until this nature is cultivated, and enlightened, and purified, neither opulence, nor power, nor learning, nor genius, nor domestic sanctity, nor the holiness of God's altars, can ever be safe. Until the immortal and god-like capacities of every being that comes iuto the world are deemed more worthy, are watched more tenderly than any other thing, no dynasty of men, or form of government, can stand, or shall stand, upon the face of the earth; and the force or the fraud which would seek to uphold them, shall be but "as fetters of flax to bind the flame."

Evil and good are God's right hand and left.

Reputation is what men and women think of us, character is what God and the angels know of us.

Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. 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. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats them! Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it.

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

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

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