Hannah More
Prayer is not eloquence but earnestness.Collection: Prayer
We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute.Collection: Religious
If I wished to punish my enemy, I should make him hate somebody.Collection: Hate
Our merciful Father has no pleasure in the sufferings of His children; He chastens them in love; He never inflicts a stroke He could safely spare; He inflicts it to purify as well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, to improve as well as to chastise.Collection: Children
Pride never sleeps. The principle at least is always awake. An intemperate man is sometimes sober, but a proud man is never humble.Collection: Humble
When we read, we fancy we could be martyrs; when we come to act, we cannot bear a provoking word.Collection: Fancy
Man can see his reflection in water only when he bends down close to it, and the heart of man, too, must lean down to the heart of his fellow; then it will see itself within his heart.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Time
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.Collection: God
Sweet is the breath of praise when given by those whose own high merit claims the praise they give.Collection: Sweet
Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.Collection: Love
A small unkindness is a great offence.Collection: Kindness
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.Collection: People
The sober comfort, all the peace which springs from the large aggregate of little things.Collection: Spring
Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs.Collection: Spring
If faith produce no works, I see That faith is not a living tree.Collection: Tree
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.Collection: Glowing
the uncandid censurer always picks out the worst man of a class, and then confidently produces him as being a fair specimen of it.Collection: Men
The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.Collection: Rose
In agony or danger, no nature is atheist. The mind that knows not what to fly to, flies to God.Collection: Atheist
it may be in morals as it is in optics, the eye and the object may come too close to each other, to answer the end of vision. There are certain faults which press too near our self-love to be even perceptible to us.Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Imagination
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.Collection: Revenge
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.Collection: Practice
Affliction is a sort of moral gymnasium in which the disciples of Christ are trained to robust exercise, hardy exertion, and severe conflict.Collection: Exercise
Life though a short, is a working day. Activity may lead to evil; but inactivity cannot be led to good.Collection: Evil
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.Collection: Christian
Expectation ... quickens desire, while possession deadens it.Collection: Expectations
Wisdom views with an indifferent eye all finite joys, all blessings born to die.Collection: Wisdom
Where evil may be done, it is right to ponder; where only suffered, know the shortest pause is much too long.Collection: Long
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.Collection: Anger
Small habits well pursued betimes May reach the dignity of crimes.Collection: May
In grief we know the worst of what we feel but who can tell the end of what we fear?Collection: Fear
I am persuaded that there is no affection of the human heart more exquisitely pure, than that which is felt by a grateful son towards a mother.Collection: Mother
Proportion and propriety are among the best secrets of domestic wisdom; and there is no surer test of integrity than a well-proportioned expenditure.Collection: Integrity
Perfect purity, fullness of joy, everlasting freedom, perfect rest, health and fruition, complete security, substantial and eternal good.Collection: Perfect
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.Collection: Heart
Those who want nothing are apt to forget how many there are who want every thing.Collection: Desire
Perish discretion, when it interferes With duty!Collection: Duty
Temptation does not make the sin, it lies ready in the heart.Collection: Lying