Hannah More famous quotes

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

#Prayer #Feelings #Soul

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.
-- Hannah More

#Forgiveness #Heartbroken #Anger

No man ever repented of being a Christian on his death bed.
-- Hannah More

#Christian #Men #Bed

One kernel is felt in a hogshead; one drop of water helps to swell the ocean; a spark of fire helps to give light to the world. None are too small, too feeble, too poor to be of service. Think of this and act.
-- Hannah More

#Ocean #Thinking #Helping Others

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.
-- Hannah More

#Life #Watches #Employment

Everything which relates to God is infinite. We must therefore, while we keep our hearts humble, keep our aims high. Our highest services are indeed but finite, imperfect. But as God is unlimited in goodness, He should have our unlimited love.
-- Hannah More

#God #Heart #Humble

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.
-- Hannah More

#Mistake #Lying #Exercise

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

#Children #Men #Roots

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.
-- Hannah More

#Time #Art #Space

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

#Envy #Spirit #Cold

Proportion and propriety are among the best secrets of domestic wisdom; and there is no surer test of integrity than a well-proportioned expenditure.
-- Hannah More

#Integrity #Secret #Tests

Strange! that what is enjoyed without pleasure cannot be discontinued without pain!
-- Hannah More

#Pain #Addiction #Strange

Where evil may be done, it is right to ponder; where only suffered, know the shortest pause is much too long.
-- Hannah More

#Long #Evil #Done

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

#Fancy #Bears #Martyr

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

#Royalty #Virtue #Manners

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.
-- Hannah More

#Heart #Perfection #Selfishness

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
-- Hannah More

#Heart #Luxury #Vices

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
-- Hannah More

#Art #Silence #Conversation

Glory darts her soul-pervading ray on thrones and cottages, regardless still of all the artificial nice distinctions vain human customs make.
-- Hannah More

#Nice #Soul #Rays

Gentleness is the outgrowth of benignity.
-- Hannah More

#Gentleness

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.
-- Hannah More

#Education #Character #Race

The sober comfort, all the peace which springs from the large aggregate of little things.
-- Hannah More

#Spring #Comfort #Littles

If faith produce 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.
-- Hannah More

#Faith #Heart #Men

He who cannot find time to consult his Bible will one day find he has time to be sick; he who has no time to pray must find time to die; he who can find no time to reflect is most likely to find time to sin; he who cannot find time for repentance will find an eternity in which repentance will be of no avail; he who cannot find time to work for others may find an eternity in which to suffer for himself.
-- Hannah More

#Time #Sick #Suffering

Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs; Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, And though but few can serve, yet all may please; On, let th' ungentle spirit learn from hence, A small unkindness is a great offence.
-- Hannah More

#Spring #Joy #Half

Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. There are three requisitions to the proper enjoyment of earthly blessings,--a thankful reflection on the goodness of the Giver, a deep sense of our unworthiness, a recollection of the uncertainty of long possessing them. The first would make us grateful; the second, humble; and the third, moderate.
-- Hannah More

#Grateful #Humble #Blessing

It is an excellent sign, that after the cares and labors of the day, you can return to your pious exercises and meditations with undiminished attention.
-- Hannah More

#Exercise #Meditation #Attention

Sensibility appears to me to be 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; besides, as people cannot get it if it is not given them, to descant on it seems to me as idle as to recommend people to have black eyes or fair complexions.
-- Hannah More

#Christian #Eye #People

Where bright imagination reigns, the fine-wrought spirit feels acuter pains.
-- Hannah More

#Pain #Imagination #Reign

My retirement was now become solitude; the former is, I believe, the best state for the mind of man, the latter almost the worst. In complete solitude, the eye wants objects, the heart wants attachments, the understanding wants reciprocation. The character loses its tenderness when it has nothing to strengthen it, its sweetness when it has nothing to soothe it.
-- Hannah More

#Retirement #Believe #Heart

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

#Desire #Want #Forget

Expectation ... quickens desire, while possession deadens it.
-- Hannah More

#Expectations #Desire #Possession

It is a sober truth that people who live only to amuse themselves work harder at the task than most people do in earning their daily bread.
-- Hannah More

#Hard Work #People #Tasks

we live in an age which must be amused, though genius, feeling, trust, and principle be the sacrifice.
-- Hannah More

#Sacrifice #Feelings #Age

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

#Envy #May #Habit

I used to wonder why people should be so fond of the company of their physician, till I recollected that he is the only person with whom one dares to talk continually of oneself, without interruption, contradiction or censure; I suppose that delightful immunity doubles their fees.
-- Hannah More

#People #Wonder #Contradiction

If faith produce no works, I see That faith is not a living tree.
-- Hannah More

#Tree #Produce

The soul on earth is an immortal guest.
-- Hannah More

#Soul #Earth #Guests

People talk as if the act of death made a complete change in the nature, as well as in the condition of man. Death is the vehicle to another state of being, but possesses no power to qualify us for that state. In conveying us to a new world it does not give us a new heart.
-- Hannah More

#Heart #Men #People

To hint at a fault does more mischief than speaking out; for whatever is left for the imagination to finish will not fail to be overdone ...
-- Hannah More

#Imagination #Criticism #Doe

the modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.
-- Hannah More

#Silence #Variables #Speech

The soul on earth is an immortal guest, Compelled to starve at an unreal feast: A spark, which upward tends by nature's force: A stream diverted from its parent source; A drop dissever'd from the boundless sea; A moment, parted from eternity; A pilgrim panting for the rest to come; An exile, anxious for his native home.
-- Hannah More

#Home #Sea #Parent

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.
-- Hannah More

#Time #Might #Expenses

Wisdom views with an indifferent eye all finite joys, all blessings born to die.
-- Hannah More

#Wisdom #Eye #Blessing

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.
-- Hannah More

#Anger #Character #People

the uncandid censurer always picks out the worst man of a class, and then confidently produces him as being a fair specimen of it.
-- Hannah More

#Men #Class #Discrimination

We do not so much want books for good people, as books which will make bad ones better.
-- Hannah More

#Book #People #Good People

parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius.
-- Hannah More

#Mistake #Parent #Genius

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?
-- Hannah More

#Thinking #Talking #Listening

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.
-- Hannah More

#Contentment #Vain #Look Up