Hannah More Quotes

118 Sourced Quotes

Youth has a quickness of apprehension, which it is very apt to mistake for an acuteness of penetration.

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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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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 deathbed.

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

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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.

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Silence is one of the great arts of conversation...

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

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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?.

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Expectation…quickens desire, while possession deadens it.

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Anger is a violent act, envy a constant habit—no one can be always angry, but he may be always envious.

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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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Temptation does not make the sin, it lies ready in the heart.

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We contrive to make revenge itself look like religion. We call down thunder on many a head under pretence, that those on whom we invoke it are God's enemies, when perhaps we invoke it because they are ours.

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

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'Won't that be delightful?' said she, twitching my arm, rather roughly, by way of recalling my attention, which however had seldom wandered.

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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.

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The prevailing manners of an age depend more than we are aware, or are willing to allow, on the conduct of the women; this is one of the principal hinges on which the great machine of human society turns.

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

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After all that corrupt poets, and more corrupt philosophers, have told us of the blandishments of pleasure, and of its tendency to soften the temper and humanize the affections, it is certain, that nothing hardens the heart like excessive and unbounded luxury; and he who refuses the fewest gratifications to his own voluptuousness, will generally be found the least susceptible of tenderness for the wants of others.

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Who are those ever multiplying authors that with unparalleled fecundity are overstocking the world with their quick succeeding progeny? They are novel-writers.

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

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The idle, life's worst burthens bear,
And, what toil escapes, despair!

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Anger is the common refuge of insignificance. People who feel their character to be slight, hope to give it weight by inflation. But the blown bladder at its fullest distention is still empty.

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Is it not a fundamental error to consider children as innocent beings, whose little weaknesses may perhaps want some correction, rather than as beings who bring into the world a corrupt nature and evil dispositions, which it should be the great end of education to rectify?

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There is scarcely any fault in another which offends us more than vanity, though perhaps there is none that really injures us so little.

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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.

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The ubiquity of the Divine presence is the only true support, and I am sometimes astonished how persons, who evidently do not possess that grand source of consolation, keep up their spirits under trials and difficulties. It must be owing to careless tempers and nerves of brass.

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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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The world does not require so much to be informed as to be reminded.

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For you'll ne'er mend your fortunes, nor help the just cause,
By breaking of windows, or breaking of laws.

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