Horace Mann

I put it as a practical question, What shall these millions of our fellow-creatures be?--for it is more than probable that this very generation,--nay, that the actors in public affairs, before the sands of the present year shall have run…

These countless millions are to be our kindred; many of them, perhaps, our own descendants; at any rate, our brethren of the human family; for has not God “made of one blood all nations of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth”?

To what bar of judgment will our own posterity bring us, what doom of infamy will history pronounce upon us, if the United States shall hereafter be found the only portion of Christendom where the principles of our own Declaration of…

In Rome and the States of the Church, where, under the influence of religious and political despotism, the heart of Freedom was supposed to be petrified into insoluble hardness, that heart is now beginning to pulsate with a new life, and…

Unwavering fidelity to the great principles of human freedom.”--The Declaration of American Independence, in 1776, was the first complete assertion of human rights, on an extensive scale, ever made by mankind.

When invested with patronage, he never dismissed a man from office because he was a political opponent, and never appointed one to office merely because he was a political friend.

They were thought out from duty and religion, and not carved out of expediency.

Though liable to err,--and what human being is not?--yet his principles were believed by him to be in accordance with the great moral laws of the universe.

His patriotism was coëxtensive with his country; it could not be crushed and squeezed in between party lines.

He did not strain at a gnat before company, on account of its size, and then, privately, swallow a camel.

Should the responsibilities of that successorship ever be devolved upon me, I shall endeavor so to fulfil them, that these dead words should become a living soul.

We stand honored in the divine regards when the great experiment, how much human nature can endure for a virtuous cause, is tried in ourselves....

No man chosen for such an enterprise is ever heard to say, ‘My commander has wronged and dishonored me,’ but rather, ‘He has known well whom to choose.’ Such, too, is the language of those who are required to suffer what would make the…

Whom God approves and loves, he exercises, and tries them again and again, and thus inures them to hardship; but those whom he designs to enervate, he spares and indulges and saves them from impending ills....

They, rather, are to be esteemed wretched, who lie torpid in luxurious ease, whom a sluggish calm detains on the great voyage, like vessels that lie weltering on a sea without a gale.

Be not affrighted, I beseech you, at the dangers which were intended by the immortal gods only as stimulants to exertion.

It is in the storm you see who is worthy to be a pilot; and in battle, who is the soldier....

God provides for those whom he would make most honorable, by furnishing them with opportunities for achieving valiant and noble deeds.

Though they who return unharmed from the field of battle may have done as many and as noble deeds, yet it is the wounded soldier who receives double honors.

Virtue covets danger; and whatever may be her aim, she never stops to consider how much she may suffer, since her sufferings are a part of her glory.

Read and ponder what was so nobly said by one of the heathen of the old world, and be ashamed, yea, weep for your country and your kind, if the Christianity of America has fallen below the paganism of Rome.

Rejoice, then, though marshalled in the fore front of battle when the Rights of Humanity are in danger, and you shall rejoice again and forever in their triumph.

It may be painful to live amongst those who upbraid and condemn you; but be a coward when virtue is in peril, and your own accusing conscience you must live with forever.

It may grieve you to break friendships, but truth and duty are your nearest friends.

Let your future manhood realize the generous aspirations of your youth; and, amid the seductions of the present hour, prize only the jubilant memories you can lay up for old age.