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After All That Corrupt Poets, And More Corrupt Philosophers, Have Told Us Of The Blandishments Of Pleasure, And Of Its Tendency To Soften The Temper And Humanize The Affections, It Is Certain, That Nothing Hardens The Heart Like Excessive And Unbounded Luxury; And He Who Refuses The Fewest Gratifications To His Own Voluptuousness, Will Generally Be Found The Least Susceptible Of Tenderness For The Wants Of Others.

-Hannah More

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After All That Corrupt

Hannah More

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After All That Corrupt Poets, And More Corrupt Philosophers, Have Told Us Of The Blandishments Of Pleasure, And Of Its Tendency To Soften The Temper And Humanize The Affections, It Is Certain, That Nothing Hardens The Heart Like Excessive And Unbounded Luxury; And He Who Refuses The Fewest Gratifications To His Own Voluptuousness, Will Generally Be Found The Least Susceptible Of Tenderness For The Wants Of Others.

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Imagination Frames Events Unknown, In Wild, Fantastic Shapes Of Hideous Ruin, And What It Fears Creates.

Expectation ... Quickens Desire, While Possession Deadens It.

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.

The Ingenuity Of Self-deception Is Inexhaustible.

A Corrupt Practice May Be Abolished, But A Soiled Imagination Is Not Easily Cleansed.

Sweet Is The Breath Of Praise When Given By Those Whose Own High Merit Claims The Praise They Give.

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.

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.

If I Wanted To Punish An Enemy, It Should Be By Fastening On Him The Trouble Of Constantly Hating Somebody.

There Are Only Two Bad Things In This World, Sin And Bile.

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

Pride Never Sleeps. The Principle At Least Is Always Awake. An Intemperate Man Is Sometimes Sober, But A Proud Man Is Never Humble.

If A Young Lady Has That Discretion And Modesty Without Which All Knowledge Is Little Worth, She Will Never Make An Ostentatious Parade Of It, Because She Will Rather Be Intent On Acquiring More Than On Displaying What She Has.

Life Though A Short, Is A Working Day. Activity May Lead To Evil; But Inactivity Cannot Be Led To Good.

Temptation Does Not Make The Sin, It Lies Ready In The Heart.

When We Read, We Fancy We Could Be Martyrs; When We Come To Act, We Cannot Bear A Provoking Word.

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.

Among The Many Evils Which Prevail Under The Sun, The Abuse Of Words Is Not The Least Considerable. By The Influence Of Time, And The Perversion Of Fashion, The Plainest And Most Unequivocal May Be So Altered, As To Have A Meaning Assigned Them Almost Diametrically Opposite To Their Original Signification.

The Uncandid Censurer Always Picks Out The Worst Man Of A Class, And Then Confidently Produces Him As Being A Fair Specimen Of It.

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.

Nothing Is More Common Than To Mistake The Sign For The Thing Itself; Nor Is Any Practice More Frequent Than That Of Endeavoring To Acquire The Exterior Mark, Without Once Thinking To Labor After The Interior Grace.

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.

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.

Goals Help You Overcome Short-term Problems.

Going To The Opera, Like Getting Drunk, Is A Sin That Carries Its Own Punishment With It.

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

Did Not God Sometimes Withhold In Mercy What We Ask, We Should Be Ruined At Our Own Request.

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.

The Keen Spirit Seizes The Prompt Occasion, Makes The Thought Start Into Instant Action, And At Once Plans And Performs, Resolves And Executes!

It Is The Modern Nature Of Goodness To Exert Itself Quietly, While A Few Characters Of The Opposite Cast Seem, By The Rumor Of Their Exploits, To Fill The World; And By Their Noise To Multiply Their Numbers.

How Short Is Human Life! The Very Breath Which Frames My Words Accelerates My Death.

O Jealousy, Thou Ugliest Fiend Of Hell! Thy Deadly Venom Preys On My Vitals, Turns The Healthful Hue Of My Flesh Check To Haggard Sallowness, And Drinks My Spirit Up!

Those Who Want Nothing Are Apt To Forget How Many There Are Who Want Every Thing.

To Those Who Know Thee Not, No Words Can Paint! And Those Who Know Thee, Know All Words Are Faint!

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.

Absence In Love Is Like Water Upon Fire; A Little Quickens, But Much Extinguishes It.

The Abuse Of Terms Has At All Times Been An Evil.

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.

Forgiveness Is The Economy Of The Heart... Forgiveness Saves The Expense Of Anger, The Cost Of Hatred, The Waste Of Spirits.

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.

No Adulation; 'tis The Death Of Virtue; Who Flatters, Is Of All Mankind The Lowest Save He Who Courts The Flattery.

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.

Rage Is For Little Wrongs; Despair Is Dumb.

Where Bright Imagination Reigns, The Fine-wrought Spirit Feels Acuter Pains.

Small Habits Well Pursued Betimes May Reach The Dignity Of Crimes.

Resentment Is An Evil So Costly To Our Peace That We Should Find It More Cheap To Forgive Even Were It No More Right.

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.

Prayer Is Not Eloquence, But Earnestness; Not The Definition Of Helplessness, But The Feeling Of It; Not Figures Of Speech, But Earnestness Of Soul.

Strange! That What Is Enjoyed Without Pleasure Cannot Be Discontinued Without Pain!

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.

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.

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.

There Is Scarcely Any Fault In Another Which Offends Us More Than Vanity, Though Perhaps There Is None That Really Injures Us So Little.

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.

Perfect Purity, Fullness Of Joy, Everlasting Freedom, Perfect Rest, Health And Fruition, Complete Security, Substantial And Eternal Good.

What Ascends Up In Prayer Descends To Us Again In Blessings. It Is Like The Rain Which Just Now Fell, And Which Had Been Drawn Up From The Ground In Vapors To The Clouds Before It Descended From Them To The Earth In That Refreshing Shower.

Wisdom Views With An Indifferent Eye All Finite Joys, All Blessings Born To Die.

Parents Are Too Apt To Mistake Inclination For Genius.

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 Ailment, Whose Property Is To Feed It.

Forgiveness Saves The Expense Of Anger.

All Desire The Gifts Of God, But They Do Not Desire God.

Youth Has A Quickness Of Apprehension, Which It Is Very Apt To Mistake For An Acuteness Of Penetration.

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.

Prayer Is Not Eloquence But Earnestness.

Luxury! More Perilous To Youth Than Storms Or Quicksand, Poverty Or Chains.

... It Is A Most Severe Trial For Those Women To Be Called To Lay Down Beauty, Who Have Nothing Else To Take Up. It Is For This Sober Season Of Life That Education Should Lay Up Its Rich Resources.

No Man Ever Repented Of Being A Christian On His Death Bed.

The Artful Injury, Whose Venomed Dart Scarce Wounds The Hearing, While It Stabs The Heart.

How Much It Is To Be Regretted, That The British Ladies Should Ever Sit Down Contented To Polish, When They Are Able To Reform; To Entertain, When They Might Instruct; And To Dazzle For An Hour, When They Are Candidates For Eternity!

The Misfortune Is, That Religious Learning Is Too Often Rather Considered As An Act Of The Memory Than Of The Heart And Affections; As A Dry Duty, Rather Than A Lively Pleasure.

In Agony Or Danger, No Nature Is Atheist. The Mind That Knows Not What To Fly To, Flies To God.

Repentance Is Not Completed By A Single Act, It Must Be Incorporated Into Our Mind, Till It Become A Fixed State, Arising From A Continual Sense Of Our Need Of It.

If I Wished To Punish My Enemy, I Should Make Him Hate Somebody.

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.

A Faint Endeavor Ends In A Sure Defeat.

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.

Proportion And Propriety Are Among The Best Secrets Of Domestic Wisdom; And There Is No Surer Test Of Integrity Than A Well-proportioned Expenditure.

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.

A Small Unkindness Is A Great Offence.

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.

Gentleness Is The Outgrowth Of Benignity.

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.

The Modes Of Speech Are Scarcely More Variable Than The Modes Of Silence.

Indeed, I Have, Alas! Outlived Almost Every One Of My Contemporaries. One Pays Dear For Living Long.

In Men This Blunder Still You Find; All Think Their Little Set Mankind.

Pleasure Is By Much The Most Laborious Trade I Know, Especially For Those Who Have Not A Vocation To It.

He Who Has Once Taken To Drink Can Seldom Be Said To Be Guilty Of One Sin Only.

Subduing And Subdued, The Petty Strife, Which Clouds The Colour Of Domestic Life; The Sober Comfort, All The Peace Which Springs From The Large Aggregate Of Little Things; On These Small Cares Of Daughter, Wife Or Friend, The Almost Sacred Joys Of Home Depend.

A Slowness To Applaud Betrays A Cold Temper Or An Envious Spirit.

When Thou Hast Truly Thanked The Lord For Every Blessing Sent, But Little Time Will Then Remain For Murmur Or Lament.

Who Are Those Ever Multiplying Authors That With Unparalleled Fecundity Are Overstocking The World With Their Quick Succeeding Progeny? They Are Novel-writers.

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.

Of Two Evils, Had Not An Author Better Be Tedious Than Superficial! From An Overflowing Vessel You May Gather More, Indeed, Than You Want, But From An Empty One You Can Gather Nothing.

If We Commit Any Crime, Or Do Any Good Here, It Must Be In Thought; For Our Words Are Few And Our Deeds None At All.

We Live In An Age Which Must Be Amused, Though Genius, Feeling, Trust, And Principle Be The Sacrifice.

After All That Corrupt Poets, And More Corrupt Philosophers, Have Told Us Of The Blandishments Of Pleasure, And Of Its Tendency To Soften The Temper And Humanize The Affections, It Is Certain, That Nothing Hardens The Heart Like Excessive And Unbounded Luxury; And He Who Refuses The Fewest Gratifications To His Own Voluptuousness, Will Generally Be Found The Least Susceptible Of Tenderness For The Wants Of Others.

It Is A Part Of Christianity To Convert Every Natural Talent To A Religious Use.

My Plan Of Instruction Is Extremely Simple And Limited. They Learn, On Week-days, Such Coarse Works As May Fit Them For Servants. I Allow Of No Writing For The Poor. My Object Is Not To Make Fanatics, But To Train Up The Lower Classes In Habits Of Industry And Piety.

Commending A Right Thing Is A Cheap Substitute For Doing It, With Which We Are Too Apt To Satisfy Ourselves.

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.

We Do Not So Much Want Books For Good People, As Books Which Will Make Bad Ones Better.

The Keen Spirit Seizes The Prompt Occasion.

He Who Finds He Has Wasted A Shilling May By Diligence Hope To Fetch It Up Again; But No Repentance Or Industry Can Ever Bring Back One Wasted Hour.

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.

We Do Not Really Know How To Forgive Until We Know What It Is To Be Forgiven. Therefore We Should Be Glad That We Can Be Forgiven By Others. It Is Our Forgiveness Of One Another That Makes The Love Of Jesus Manifest In Our Lives, For In Forgiving One Another We Act Towards One Another As He Has Acted Towards Us.

Oblivion Has Been Noticed As The Offspring Of Silence.

The Ubiquity Of The Divine Presence Is The Only True Support, And I Am Sometimes Astonished How Persons, Who Evidently Do Not Possess That Grand Source Of Consolation, Keep Up Their Spirits Under Trials And Difficulties. It Must Be Owing To Careless Tempers And Nerves Of Brass.

Names Govern The World.

A Crown! What Is It? It Is To Bear The Miseries Of A People! To Hear Their Murmurs, Feel Their Discontents, And Sink Beneath A Load Of Splendid Care!

There Is One Single Fact That One May Oppose To All The Wit And Argument Of Infidelity; Namely, That No Man Ever Repented Of Being A Christian On His Death-bed.

Affliction Is A Sort Of Moral Gymnasium In Which The Disciples Of Christ Are Trained To Robust Exercise, Hardy Exertion, And Severe Conflict.

Idleness Among Children, As Among Men, Is The Root Of All Evil, And Leads To No Other Evil More Certain Than Ill Temper.

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.

In Grief We Know The Worst Of What We Feel But Who Can Tell The End Of What We Fear?

Affliction Is The School In Which Great Virtues Are Acquired, In Which Great Characters Are Formed.

To Be Good And Disagreeable Is High Treason Against The Royalty Of Virtue.

Eternity Is A Depth Which No Geometry Can Measure, No Arithmetic Calculate, No Imagination Conceive, No Rhetoric Describe.

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.

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.

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.

Perish Discretion, When It Interferes With Duty!

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.

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.

Where Evil May Be Done, It Is Right To Ponder; Where Only Suffered, Know The Shortest Pause Is Much Too Long.

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.

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.

Since Trifles Make The Sum Of Human Things, And Half Our Misery From Our Foibles Springs.

All Reformations Seem Formidable Before They Are Attempted.

The Secret Heart Is Fair Devotion's Temple; There The Saint, Even On That Living Altar, Lights The Flame Of Purest Sacrifice, Which Burns Unseen, Not Unaccepted.

Love Never Reasons, But Profusely Gives, Gives, Like A Thoughtless Prodigal, Its All, And Trembles Then, Lest It Has Done Too Little.

Sow An Action, Reap A Habit.

The Soul On Earth Is An Immortal Guest.

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?

The World Does Not Require So Much To Be Informed As To Be Reminded.

The Sober Comfort, All The Peace Which Springs From The Large Aggregate Of Little Things.

If Faith Produce No Works, I See That Faith Is Not A Living Tree.

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.

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.

Anger Is A Violent Act, Envy A Constant Habit - No One Can Be Always Angry, But He May Be Always Envious.

Glory Darts Her Soul-pervading Ray On Thrones And Cottages, Regardless Still Of All The Artificial Nice Distinctions Vain Human Customs Make.

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