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Horace Mann

Horace Mann Quotes

American Politician

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Famous Horace Mann Quotes

“In such a world as ours the idle man is not so much a biped as a bivalve; and the wealth which breeds idleness, of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country, is only a sort of human oyster bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worms' banquet.”

MenWorldHumansCountryWealthGrowingExampleBedGravesIdleWormsIdlenessHeirsOystersBanquetsHeiressSucculentsSlothfulness
Book:A Few Thoughts for a Young Man: A Lecture, Delivered Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, on Its 29th Anniversary
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“If ever there was a cause, if ever there can be a cause, worthy to be upheld by all of toil or sacrifice that the human heart can endure, it is the cause of Education. It has intrinsic and indestructible merits. It holds the welfare of mankind in its embrace, as the protecting arms of a mother hold her infant to her bosom. The very ignorance and selfishness which obstructs its path are the strongest arguments for its promotion, for it furnishes the only adequate means for their removal.”

IfsHumansHeartMeanMotherCausesEducationPathSacrificeMankindIgnoranceArmsArgumentEmbraceEndureWorthySelfishnessWelfareMeritStrongestToilHuman HeartInfantAdequatePromotionBosomsRemovalIndestructibleAdequate Means
Book:Thoughts
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“He who dethrones the idea of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead.”

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Book:Speech of Hon. Horace Mann, of Massachusetts, on Slavery and the Slave-trade in the District of Columbia: Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, February 23, 1849
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“Resistance to improvement contradicts the noblest instincts of the race. It begets its opposite. The fanaticism of reform is only the raging of the accumulated waters caused by the obstructions which an ultra conservatism has thrown across the stream of progress; and revolution itself is but the sudden overwhelming and sweeping away of impediments that should have been seasonably removed.”

ShouldHas BeensWaterRaceProgressRevolutionShould HaveOppositesInstinctRageImprovementResistanceReformStreamsThrownOverwhelmingConservatismFanaticismShould Have BeenBegetsSweepingImpedimentsObstructionUltras
Author:Horace Mann
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“There is nothing derogatory in any employment which ministers to the well-being of the race. It is the spirit that is carried into an employment that elevates or degrades it.”

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Book:A Few Thoughts for a Young Man: A Lecture, Delivered Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, on Its 29th Anniversary
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“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.”

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Book:A Few Thoughts for a Young Man: A Lecture, Delivered Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, on Its 29th Anniversary
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“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.”

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Book:A Few Thoughts for a Young Man: A Lecture, Delivered Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, on Its 29th Anniversary
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“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.”

FeelsChildrenMatterIndividualForceActingAppreciateBlindEndureIgnorantEducatedAcknowledgeBowsSovereigntyMajestyMandatesAdmitting
Book:Common School Journal
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“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!”

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Book:Thoughts
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“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.”

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Book:Common School Journal
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