Skip to content

Horace Mann Quotes

1796–1859 United States

Horace Mann (4 May 1796 – 2 August 1859) was an American education reformer and abolitionist.

United States
Activists
Educators
Politicians
Unitarians

Also known as: Mann, Horace

Random Horace Mann quote

71 quotes

Observation — activity of both eyes and ears.

Every Other Sunday Vol. 23 (1907)

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

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it.

The Duty of Owning Books (1859)

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

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

Books are not made for furniture but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.

The Duty of Owning Books (1859)

Men are not accustomed to buy books unless they want them.

The Duty of Owning Books (1859)

Knowledge is a mimic creation.

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

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

The Quotable Teacher (2006)

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.

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

But let a man know that there are things to be known, of which he is ignorant, and it is so much carved out of his domain of universal knowledge.

We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital. As Satan said, "Evil, be thou my good," so they say, "Darkness, be thou my light."

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows.

The Duty of Owning Books (1859)

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.

A Few Thoughts for a Young Man (1850)

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.

A Few Thoughts for a Young Man (1850)

Give me a house furnished with books rather than furniture! Both, if you can, but books at any rate!

The Duty of Owning Books (1859)

In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors.

Just in proportion as a man becomes good, divine, Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing, of system-building, and hireling service, into the region of beneficent activities. It is well to think well. It is divine to act well.

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Let but the public mind become once thoroughly corrupt, and all attempts to secure property, liberty or life, by mere force of laws written on parchment, will be as vain as to put up printed notices in an orchard to keep off the canker-worms.

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

When a child can be brought to tears, not from fear of punishment, but from repentance for his offence, he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from grief at one's own conduct, be sure there is an angel nestling in the bosom.

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Horace Mann (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.