Quote

Enslave a man and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, his capacity. In the constitution of human nature, the desire of bettering one's condition is the mainspring of effort. The first touch of slavery snaps this spring.

Horace Mann

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Horace Mann
Age: 63 †
Born: 1796
Born: May 4
Died: 1859
Died: August 2
American Politician
Lawyer
Politician
University Teacher
Franklin
Massachusetts
Desire
Slavery
Nature
Ambition
Bettering
Firsts
Touch
Mainspring
Human
Constitution
Enslave
Humans
Spring
Snaps
First
Capacity
Enterprise
Men
Conditions
Condition
Effort
Destroy

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In trying to teach children a great deal in a short time, they are treated not as though the race they were to run was for life, but simply a three-mile heat.
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We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.
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No combatants are so unequally matched as when one is shackled with error, while the other rejoices in the self-demonstrability of truth.
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Bodies are cleansed by water the mind is purified by truth.
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We conceive of immortality as having a beginning, but no end but we conceive of eternity as having neither beginning nor end. Hence it is proper to speak of eternity as the attribute of God, but of immortality as the attribute of man.
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Above all, let the poor hang up the amulet of temperance in their homes.
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A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.
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Superiority to circumstances is one of the most prominent characteristics of great men.
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When will society, like a mother, take care of all her children?
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The living soul of man, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled.
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There is not a good work which the hand of man has ever undertaken, which his heart has ever conceived, which does not require a good education for its helper.
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Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
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To pity distress is but human to relieve it is Godlike.
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Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time.
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To know the machine one must know where each part belongs, and what its office is.
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Reproof is a medicine, like mercury or opium if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.
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If evil is inevitable, how are the wicked accountable? Nay, why do we call men wicked at all? Evil is inevitable, but is also remediable.
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The highest service we can perform for others is to help them help themselves.
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Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
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Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.
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