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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
Humans
Spring
Snaps
First
Capacity
Enterprise
Men
Conditions
Condition
Effort
Destroy
Desire
Slavery
Nature
Ambition
Bettering
Firsts
Touch
Mainspring
Human
Constitution
Enslave

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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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Seek not greatness, but seek truth and you will find both.
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Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
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If you wish to write well, study the life about you,--life in the public streets.
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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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One thing I certainly never was made for, and that is to put principles on and off at the dictation of a party, as a lackey changes his livery at his master's command.
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Love must be the same in all worlds.
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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.
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The object of punishment is, prevention from evil it never can be made impulsive to good.
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An ignorant man is always able to say yes or no immediately to any proposition. To a wise man, comparatively few things can be propounded which do not require a response with qualifications, with discriminations, with proportion.
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When you introduce into our schools a spirit of emulation, you have present the keenest spur admissible to the youthful intellect.
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Ten men have failed from defect in morals, where one has failed from defect in intellect.
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Man is improvable. Some people think he is only a machine, and that the only difference between a man and a mill is, that one is carried by blood and the other by water.
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The most precious wine is produced upon the sides of volcanoes. Now bold and inspiring ideals are only born of a clear head that stands over a glowing heart.
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Habit can overcome anything but instinct, and can greatly modify even that.
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The Chinese have an excellent proverb: Be modest in speech, but excel in action.
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Biography, especially of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.
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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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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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