Hannah More Quotes
The sober comfort, all the peace which springs from the large aggregate of little things.
Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.
Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.
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!
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.
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.
When thou hast truly thanked the Lord for every blessing sent, But little time will then remain for murmur or lament.
No adulation; 'tis the death of virtue; Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest Save he who courts the flattery.
Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.
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
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.
We have employments assigned to us for every circumstance in life. When we are alone, we have our thoughts to watch; in the family, our tempers; and in company, our tongues.
Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs.
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.
Sweet is the breath of praise when given by those whose own high merit claims the praise they give.
Imagination frames events unknown, In wild, fantastic shapes of hideous ruin, And what it fears creates.
The wretch who digs the mine for bread, or ploughs, that others may be fed, feels less fatigued than that decreed to him who cannot think or read.
Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.
Love never reasons, but profusely gives, Gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, And trembles then, lest it has done too little.
Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.
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.
There is one single fact that one may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity; namely, that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his death-bed.
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.
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
... it is a most severe trial for those women to be called to lay down beauty, who have nothing else to take up. It is for this sober season of life that education should lay up its rich resources.
To those who know thee not, no words can paint! And those who know thee, know all words are faint!
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.
Did not God Sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, We should be ruined at our own request.
