Hannah More Quotes

Everything which relates to God is infinite. We must therefore, while we keep our hearts humble, keep our aims high. Our highest services are indeed but finite, imperfect. But as God is unlimited in goodness, He should have our unlimited love.

The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

A small unkindness is a great offence.

It is doing some service to humanity, to amuse innocently. They know but little of society who think we can bear to be always employed, either in duties or meditation, without relaxation.

It is a sober truth that people who live only to amuse themselves work harder at the task than most people do in earning their daily bread.

Eternity is a depth which no geometry can measure, no arithmetic calculate, no imagination conceive, no rhetoric describe.

I did not intend making a philippic against covetousness, a sin to which I believe no one here is addicted. Let us not, however, plume ourselves in not being guilty of a vice to which, as we have no natural bias so in not committing it, we resist no temptation. What I meant to insist on was, that exchanging a turbulent for a quiet sin, or a scandalous for an orderly one, is not reformation.

I call education, not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of character; that which tends to form a friend, a companion, and a wife. I call education not that which is made up of the shreds and patches of useless arts, but that which inculcates principles, polishes taste, regulates temper, cultivates reason, subdues the passions, directs the feelings, habituates to reflection, trains to self-denial, and, more especially, that which refers all actions, feelings, sentiments, tastes, and passions, to the love and fear of God.

Twas doing nothing was his curse. Is there a vice can plague us worse?

A faint endeavor ends in a sure defeat.

We do not really know how to forgive until we know what it is to be forgiven.
Therefore we should be glad that we can be forgiven by others. It is our
forgiveness of one another that makes the love of Jesus manifest in our lives,
for in forgiving one another we act towards one another
as He has acted towards us.

Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.

Luxury and dissipation, soft and gentle as their approaches are, and silently as they throw their silken chains about the heart, enslave it more than the most active and turbulent vices

Those who want nothing are apt to forget how many there are who want every thing.

If I wanted to punish an enemy it should be by fastening on him or her the trouble of constantly hating somebody.

It is not so important to know everything as to know the exact value of everything, to appreciate what we learn and to arrange what we know.

All reformations seem formidable before they are attempted.

It is an excellent sign, that after the cares and labors of the day, you can return to your pious exercises and meditations with undiminished attention.

Names govern the world.

Subduing and subdued, the petty strife, Which clouds the colour of domestic life; The sober comfort, all the peace which springs From the large aggregate of little things; On these small cares of daughter, wife or friend, The almost sacred joys of home depend.

No adulation; 'tis the death of virtue; Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest Save he who courts the flattery.

If we commit any crime, or do any good here, it must be in thought; for our words are few and our deeds none at all.

The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.

Perfect purity, fullness of joy, everlasting freedom, perfect rest, health and fruition, complete security, substantial and eternal good.

A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit.

It's cheaper to pardon than to resent. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, and the waste of spirit.

He who cannot find time to consult his Bible will one day find he has time to be sick; he who has no time to pray must find time to die; he who can find no time to reflect is most likely to find time to sin; he who cannot find time for repentance will find an eternity in which repentance will be of no avail; he who cannot find time to work for others may find an eternity in which to suffer for himself.

Where evil may be done, it is right to ponder; where only suffered, know the shortest pause is much too long.

It is the large aggregate of small things perpetually occurring that robs me of all my time. The expense of learning to read might have been spared in my education, for I never read.

To hint at a fault does more mischief than speaking out; for whatever is left for the imagination to finish will not fail to be overdone ...

When you are disposed to be vain of your mental acquirements, look up to those who are more accomplished than yourself, that you may be fired with emulation; but when you feel dissatisfied with your circumstances, look down on those beneath you, that you may learn contentment.

The sober comfort, all the peace which springs from the large aggregate of little things.

Imagination frames events unknown,
In wild, fantastic shapes of hideous ruin,
And what it fears creates.

The secret heart is fair devotion's temple; there the saint, even on that living altar, lights the flame of purest sacrifice, which burns unseen, not unaccepted.

In men this blunder still you find; all think their little set mankind.

Genius without religion is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace; it may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without, while the inhabitant sits in darkness.

A corrupt practice may be abolished, but a soiled imagination is not easily cleansed.

Goals help you overcome short-term problems.

Parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius.

All desire the gifts of God, but they do not desire God.

Outward attacks and troubles rather fix than unsettle the Christian, as tempests from without only serve to root the oak faster; while an inward canker will gradually rot and decay it.

Pleasure is by much the most laborious trade I know, especially for those who have not a vocation to it.

It may be in morals as it is in optics, the eye and the object may come too close to each other, to answer the end of vision. There are certain faults which press too near our self-love to be even perceptible to us.

Luxury! more perilous to youth than storms or quicksand, poverty or chains.

When thou hast truly thanked the Lord for every blessing sent, But little time will then remain for murmur or lament.

I used to wonder why people should be so fond of the company of their physician, till I recollected that he is the only person with whom one dares to talk continually of oneself, without interruption, contradiction or censure; I suppose that delightful immunity doubles their fees.

Our infinite obligations to God do not fill our hearts half as much as a petty uneasiness of our own; nor His infinite perfections as much as our smallest wants.

How much it is to be regretted, that the British ladies should ever sit down contented to polish, when they are able to reform; to entertain, when they might instruct; and to dazzle for an hour, when they are candidates for eternity!

He who finds he has wasted a shilling may by diligence hope to fetch it up again; but no repentance or industry can ever bring back one wasted hour.

The keen spirit
Seizes the prompt occasion, makes the thought
Start into instant action, and at once
Plans and performs, resolves and executes!

Oh! the joy Of young ideas painted on the mind, In the warm glowing colors fancy spreads On objects not yet known, when all is new, And all is lovely.

Just at that moment, Lucilla happened to cross the lawn at a distance. At sight of her, I could not, as I pointed to her, forbear exclaiming in the words of Sir John's favorite poet,
There doth beauty dwell,
There most conspicuous, e'en in outward shape,
Where dawns the high expression of a mind.
"This is very fine," said Sir John, sarcastically. "I admire all you young enthusiastic philosophers, with your intellectual refinement. You pretend to be captivated only with _mind_. I observe, however, that previous to your raptures, you always take care to get this mind lodged in a fair and youthful form. This mental beauty is always prudently enshrined in some elegant corporeal frame, before it is worshiped. I should be glad to see some of these intellectual adorers in love with the mind of an old or ugly woman. I never heard any of you fall into ecstasies in descanting on the mind of your grandmother.

Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.

We do not so much want books for good people, as books which will make bad ones better.

We are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions to exercise great and rare virtues, and by stepping over the ordinary ones that lie directly in the road before us.

Of two evils, had not an author better be tedious than superficial! From an overflowing vessel you may gather more, indeed, than you want, but from an empty one you can gather nothing.

The uncandid censurer always picks out the worst man of a class, and then confidently produces him as being a fair specimen of it.

My retirement was now become solitude; the former is, I believe, the best state for the mind of man, the latter almost the worst. In complete solitude, the eye wants objects, the heart wants attachments, the understanding wants reciprocation. The character loses its tenderness when it has nothing to strengthen it, its sweetness when it has nothing to soothe it.

We live in an age which must be amused, though genius, feeling, trust, and principle be the sacrifice.

That silence is one of the great arts of conversation is allowed by Cicero himself, who says, there is not only an art, but even an eloquence in it

Commending a right thing is a cheap substitute for doing it, with which we are too apt to satisfy ourselves.

Man can see his reflection in water only when he bends down close to it, and the heart of man, too, must lean down to the heart of his fellow; then it will see itself within his heart.

Proportion and propriety are among the best secrets of domestic wisdom; and there is no surer test of integrity than a well-proportioned expenditure.

If I wished to punish my enemy, I should make him hate somebody.

Small habits well pursued betimes May reach the dignity of crimes.

In grief we know the worst of what we feel but who can tell the end of what we fear?

Sensibility appears to me to be neither good nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle, it makes saints and martyrs; ill-directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation; besides, as people cannot get it if it is not given them, to descant on it seems to me as idle as to recommend people to have black eyes or fair complexions.

Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty.

When these incorrigible talkers are compelled to be quiet, is it not evident that they are not silent because they are listening to what is said, but because they are thinking of what they themselves shall say when they can seize the first lucky interval, for which they are so narrowly watching?

Yes, thou art ever present, power divine; not circumscribed by time, nor fixed by space, confined to altars, nor to temples bound. In wealth, in want, in freedom, or in chains, in dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee.

Love never reasons but profusely gives ... gives like a thoughtless prodigal, it's all and trembles then, lest it has done too little.

Did not God Sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, We should be ruined at our own request.

Resentment is an evil so costly to our peace that we should find it more cheap to forgive even were it no more right.

If faith produce no works, I see That faith is not a living tree. Thus faith and works together grow, No separate life they never can know. They're soul and body, hand and heart, What God hath joined, let no man part.

Sound economy is a sound understanding brought into action; it is calculation realized; it is the doctrine of proportion reduced to practice; it is foreseeing contingencies, and providing against them.

How short is human life! the very breath
Which frames my words accelerates my death.

Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.

People talk as if the act of death made a complete change in the nature, as well as in the condition of man. Death is the vehicle to another state of being, but possesses no power to qualify us for that state. In conveying us to a new world it does not give us a new heart.

He seemed evidently more fond of controversy than of truth, and the whole turn of his conversation indicated that he derived his religious security rather from the adoption of a party, than from the implantation of a new principle.

Bible Christianity is what I love ... a Christianity practical and pure, which teaches holiness, humility, repentance and faith in Christ; and which after summing up all the Evangelical graces, declares that the greatest of these is charity .