Hosea Ballou

Real happiness is cheap enough yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

To talk of luck and chance only shows how little we really know of the laws which govern cause and effect.

Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable.

The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

Preaching is to much avail, but practice is far more effective. A godly life is the strongest argument you can offer the skeptic.

Too many people embrace religion from the same motives that they take a companion in wedlock, not from true love of the person, but because of a large dowry.

Energy like the biblical grain of the mustard seed will remove mountains.

There is no such things as "best" in the world of individuals.

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation.

We must not only read the Scriptures, but we must make their rules of life our own.

Hatred is self punishment.

Hatred is self-punishment.

True repentance also involves reform.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

Purity in person and in morals is true godliness.

We must not only read the Scriptures, but we must make their rules of life our own.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character as an ink drop soileth the pure white page.

Moderation is the key of lasting enjoyment.

Remember, when incited to slander, that it is only he among you who is without sin that may cast the first stone.

Error is always more busy than truth.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

Obedience and resignation are our personal offerings upon the altar of duty.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

Falsehood is cowardice, the truth courage.

No one has a greater asset for his business than a man's pride in his work.

Theories are always very thin and insubstantial, experience only is tangible.

Disease is the retribution of outraged Nature.

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.

There is no such things as 'best' in the world of individuals.

Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams.

Obedience and resignation are our personal offerings upon the altar of duty.

Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human, the latter is divine.

Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

The cloudy weather melts at length into beauty and the brightest smiles of the heart are born of its tears.

Idleness is emptiness; the tree in which the sap is stagnant, remains fruitless.

You cannot judge by outward appearances; the soul is only transparent to its Maker.

Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character.

The act of divine worship is the inestimable privilege of man, the only created being who bows in humility and adoration.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.

God's glowing covenant.

Energy, like the biblical grain of the mustard-seed, will remove mountains.