Quote

nothing is more common than to mistake the sign for the thing itself nor is any practice more frequent than that of endeavoring to acquire the exterior mark, without once thinking to labor after the interior grace.

Hannah More

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Hannah More
Age: 88 †
Born: 1745
Born: February 2
Died: 1833
Died: September 7
Abolitionist
Essayist
Philanthropist
Playwright
Poet
Tragedy Writer
Writer
Will Chip
Thing
Mark
Endeavoring
Thinking
Labor
Superficiality
Grace
Frequent
Mistake
Exterior
Practice
Interior
Common
Interiors
Without
Acquire
Nothing
Sign

More quotes by Hannah More

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Long habit so reconciles us to almost any thing, that the grossest improprieties cease to strike us when they once make a part of the common course of action.
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Luxury! more perilous to youth than storms or quicksand, poverty or chains.
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we live in an age which must be amused, though genius, feeling, trust, and principle be the sacrifice.
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it is the modern nature of goodness to exert itself quietly, while a few characters of the opposite cast seem, by the rumor of their exploits, to fill the world and by their noise to multiply their numbers.
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Temptation does not make the sin, it lies ready in the heart.
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Glory darts her soul-pervading ray on thrones and cottages, regardless still of all the artificial nice distinctions vain human customs make.
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What ascends up in prayer descends to us again in blessings. It is like the rain which just now fell, and which had been drawn up from the ground in vapors to the clouds before it descended from them to the earth in that refreshing shower.
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The constant habit of perusing devout books is so indispensable, that it has been termed the oil of the lamp of prayer. Too much reading, however, and too little meditation, may produce the effect of a lamp inverted which is extinguished by the very excess of that ailment, whose property is to feed it.
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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!
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Did not God Sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, We should be ruined at our own request.
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Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.
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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.
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O jealousy, Thou ugliest fiend of hell! thy deadly venom Preys on my vitals, turns the healthful hue Of my flesh check to haggard sallowness, And drinks my spirit up!
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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.
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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.
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The misfortune is, that religious learning is too often rather considered as an act of the memory than of the heart and affections as a dry duty, rather than a lively pleasure.
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Resentment is an evil so costly to our peace that we should find it more cheap to forgive even were it no more right.
Hannah More
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Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.
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A crown! what is it? It is to bear the miseries of a people! To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents, And sink beneath a load of splendid care!
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Commending a right thing is a cheap substitute for doing it, with which we are too apt to satisfy ourselves.
Hannah More