Hosea Ballou
If gratitude is due from children to their earthly parent, how much more is the gratitude of the great family of men due to our father in heaven.Collection: Gratitude
Be circumspect in your dealings, and let the seed you plant be the offspring of prudence and care; thus fruit follows the fair blossom, as honor follows a good life.Collection: Good Life
There is one court whose findings are incontrovertible, and whose sessions are held in the chambers of our own breast.Collection: Court
Humanity, in the aggregate, is progressing, and philanthropy looks forward hopefully.Collection: Humanity
Remember, when incited to slander, that it is only he among you who is without sin that may cast the first stone.Collection: May
The act of divine worship is the inestimable privilege of man, the only created being who bows in humility and adoration.Collection: Humility
Our blessings are the least heeded, because the most common events of life.Collection: Blessing
How white are the fair robes of Charity as she walketh amid the lowly habitations of the poor!Collection: White
Experience is retrospect knowledge.Collection: Experience
As "unkindness has no remedy at law," let its avoidance be with you a point of honor.Collection: Law
Folly is like the growth of weeds, always luxurious and spontaneous; wisdom, like flowers, requires cultivation.Collection: Weed
Prosperity often presages adversity.Collection: Adversity
Theory, from whatever source, is not perfect until it is reduced to practice.Collection: Practice
It is better to be the builder of our own name than to be indebted by descent for the proudest gifts known to the books of heraldry.Collection: Book
A mother's love, in a degree, sanctifies the most worthless offspring.Collection: Mother
A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character, as an ink-drop soileth the pure white page.Collection: Character
Embark on no enterprise which you cannot submit to the test of prayer.Collection: Prayer
Lay silently the injuries you receive upon the altar of oblivion.Collection: Oblivion
Prosperity is very liable to bring pride among the other goods with which it endows an individual; it is then that prosperity costs too dear.Collection: Pride
There is no immunity from the consequences of sin; punishment is swift and sure to one and all.Collection: Punishment
That kind of discipline whose pungent severity is in the manifestations of paternal love, compassion, and tenderness is the most sure of its object.Collection: Compassion
Reproof, especially as it relates to children, administered in all gentleness, will render the culprit not afraid, but ashamed to repeat the offence.Collection: Children
A wise Providence consoles our present afflictions by joys borrowed from the future.Collection: Wise
Death comes to us, under many conditions, with all the welcome serenity of sleep.Collection: Sleep
True charity is spontaneous and finds its own occasion; it is never the offspring of importunity, nor of emulation.Collection: Charity
Doubt that creed which you cannot reduce to practice.Collection: Practice
The eye is inlet to the soul.Collection: Eye
Idleness is emptiness; the tree in which the sap is stagnant, remains fruitless.Collection: Tree
Liberality should be tempered with judgment, not with profuseness.Collection: Judgment
Obedience, as it regards the social relations, the rules of society, and the laws of nature and nature's God, should commence at the cradle and end only at the tomb.Collection: Law
A chaste and lucid style is indicative of the same personal traits in the author.Collection: Style
Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there are no barriers; the only password is prayer.Collection: Prayer
I have somewhere read that conscience not only sits as witness and judge within our bosoms, but also forms the prison of punishment.Collection: Punishment
It is the nature of intellect to strive to improve in intellectual power.Collection: Intellectual
It is a glorious occupation, vivifying and self-sustaining in its nature, to struggle with ignorance, and discover to the inquiring minds of the masses the clear cerulean blue of heavenly truth.Collection: Struggle
Purity in person and in morals is true godliness.Collection: Moral
The cloudy weather melts at length into beauty, and the brightest smiles of the heart are born of its tears.Collection: Heart
The goodness of God to mankind is no less evinced in the chastisement with which He corrects His children than in the smiles of His providence; for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.Collection: Children
It is what we give up, not what we lay up, that adds to our lasting store.Collection: Giving Up
The experience of others adds to our knowledge, but not to our wisdom; that is dearer bought.Collection: Inspirational
True repentance always involves reform.Collection: Reform
Self-respect is the best of all.Collection: Respect
It is in sickness that we most feel the need of that sympathy which shows how much we are dependent upon one another for our comfort, and even necessities. Thus disease, opening our eyes to the realities of life, is an indirect blessing.Collection: Eye
Pretension almost always overdoes the original, and hence exposes itself.Collection: Being Original
The heavens and the earth, the woods and the wayside, teem with instruction and knowledge to the curious and thoughtful.Collection: Thoughtful
How quickly a truly benevolent act is repaid by the consciousness of having done it!Collection: Done
The law of heaven is love.Collection: Love
Envy may justly be called "the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity;" it is the most acid fruit that grows on the stock of sin, a fluid so subtle that nothing but the fire of divine love can purge it from the soul.Collection: Fire
No reproof or denunciation is so potent as the silent influence of a good example.Collection: Example