Keep one thing in view forever- the truth; and if you do this, though it may seem to lead you away from the opinion of men, it will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God.
Interpretation
Always prioritize truth, even if it distances you from others' opinions, as it leads to a higher understanding.
Horace Mann emphasizes the importance of truth as a guiding principle in life. He suggests that while the pursuit of truth may cause one to diverge from popular opinion or societal norms, it ultimately leads to a deeper connection with the divine or a more profound understanding of existence. This quote highlights the courage it takes to follow one's convictions and the ultimate rewards of being truthful.
In practice
During a public speech about personal values, one might say, 'As Horace Mann put it, we should keep the truth in view forever.'
Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
There may be frugality which is not economy. A community, that withholds the means of education from its children, withholds the bread of life and starves their souls.
Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.
Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.
I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.
Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.
To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.
It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.
Unless a variety of opinions are laid before us, we have no opportunity of selection, but are bound of necessity to adopt the particular view which may have been brought forward.
If you don't work on important problems, it's not likely that you'll do important work.
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