51 Hannah More Quotes

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

The soul on earth is an immortal guest, compelled to starve at an unreal feast; a pilgrim panting for the rest to come; an exile, anxious for his native home.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

Luxury! More perilous to youth than storms or quicksand, poverty or chains.

There is one single fact which we may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity, namely, that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his death-bed.

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!

There are three requisites to the proper enjoyment of earthly blessings: a thankful reflection, on the goodness of the giver; a deep sense of our own unworthiness; and a recollection of the uncertainty of our long possessing them. The first will make us grateful; the second, humble; and the third, moderate.

If I wanted to punish an enemy it should be by fastening on him the trouble of constantly hating somebody.

How goodness heightens beauty!

In agony or danger, no nature is atheist. The mind that knows not what to fly to, flies to God.

O, Jealousy, thou ugliest fiend of hell! thy deadly venom preys on my vitals, turns the healthful hue of my fresh cheek to haggard shallowness, and drinks my spirit up.

The secret heart is devotion's temple; there the saint lights the flame of purest sacrifice, which burns unseen but not unaccepted.

Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.

A Christian will find it cheaper to pardon than to resent. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

When you are disposed to be vain of your mental acquirements, look up to those who are more accomplished than yourself, that you may be fired with emulation; but when you feel dissatisfied with your circumstances, look down on those beneath you, that you may learn contentment.

Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.

A sound economy is a sound understanding brought into action. It is calculation realized; it is the doctrine of proportion reduced to practice; it is foreseeing contingencies and providing against them; it is expecting contingencies and being prepared for them.

So weak is man, so ignorant and blind, that did not God sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, we should be ruined at our own request.

Love never reasons, but profusely gives; it gives like a thoughtless prodigal its all, and then trembles least it has done to little.

Goals help you overcome short-term problems.

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.

Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.

A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit.

Outward attacks and troubles rather fix than unsettle the Christian, as tempests from without only serve to root the oak faster; while an inward canker will gradually rot and decay it.

Adulation is the death of virtue. Who flatters, is, of all mankind, the lowest, save he who courts the flattery.

If faith produces no works, I see that faith is not a living tree. Thus faith and works together grow, No separate life they never can know. They're soul and body, hand and heart, What God hath joined, let no man part.

Yes, thou art ever present, power divine; not circumscribed by time, nor fixed by space, confined to altars, nor to temples bound. In wealth, in want, in freedom, or in chains, in dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee.

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 aliment, whose property is to feed it.

If the one be good, the other must be evil. The only way to justify the stage, as it is, as it has ever been, as it is ever likely to be, is to condemn the Bible - the same individual cannot defend both.

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.

Imagination frames events unknown, in wild, fantastic shapes of hideous ruin, And what it fears, creates.

A life devoted to trifles, not only takes away the inclination, but the capacity for higher pursuits. The truths of Christianity have scarcely more influence on a frivolous than on a profligate character.

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.

When we read, we fancy we could be martyrs; when we come to act, we cannot bear a provoking word.

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number. So blinded are we to our passions, that we suffer more to insure perdition than salvation.

The education of the present race of females is not very favorable to domestic happiness. For my own part, I call education, not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of character. That which tends to form a friend, a companion, and a wife.

To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of virtue.

We are apt to mistake our vocation in looking out of the way for occasions to exercise great and rare virtues, and stepping over the ordinary ones which lie directly in the road before us.

Christian beneficence takes a large sweep; that circumference cannot be small of which God is the centre.

Life though a short, is a working day. Activity may lead to evil; but inactivity cannot be led to good.

Many works of fiction may be read with safety; some even with profit; but the constant familiarity, even with such as are not exceptionable in themselves, relaxes the mind, which needs hardening; dissolves the heart, which wants fortifying; stirs the imagination, which wants quieting; irritates the passions, which want calming; and, above all, disinclines and disqualifies for active virtues and for spiritual exercises.

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

In grief we know the worst of what we feel, But who can tell the end of what we fear?

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.

The keen spirit seizes the prompt occasion; makes the thought start into instant action, and at once plans and performs, resolves, and executes!

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.

Sensibility is neither good, nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle it makes saints and martyrs; ill-directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation.

Depart from discretion when it interferes with duty.

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.

Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it and that a very severe one.