“We can teach no virtues we do not practice," occurred to me this afternoon; for without learning by experience how a virtue is acquired, how can we teach any one to acquire it? I thought of this in connection with the experience of undutiful children. By the working of this natural cause, they will not make their own children dutiful. Read in Luke of the angel which appeared to Christ in Gethsemane, strengthening Him. We all see this angel when we say truly, "Thy will, not mine, be done.”

— Julia Ward Howe

22 August 1875.
The Walk With God (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We can teach no virtues we do not practice," occurred to me this afternoon; for without learning by experience how a vi…" by Julia Ward Howe?

Julia Ward Howe photo

Julia Ward Howe 40

American abolitionist, social activist, and poet 1819–1910

Related quotes

“Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Source: Rhythms of Learning

“When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffer and also how to grow.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

“Only experience or example can rationally determine which way the heart should incline. Now experience is not an advantage that it is open to everyone to acquire, since it depends on the various situations in which, by chance, we find ourselves. For many people, then, this leaves only example that can offer any guidance as to how they should exercise virtue.”

Antoine François Prévost (1697–1763) French novelist

Il n'y a que l'expérience ou l'exemple qui puisse déterminer raisonnablement le penchant du cœur. Or l'expérience n'est point un avantage qu'il soit libre à tout le monde de se donner; elle dépend des situations différentes où l'on se trouve placé par la fortune. Il ne reste donc que l'exemple qui puisse servir de règle à quantité de personnes dans l'exercice de la vertu.
Avis de l'auteur, p. 32; translation pp. 4-5.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)

“We treat the children like children. It is the powerful with their war that treats them like they are adults. We talk to them. We teach them that the word, together with love and dignity, is what makes us human beings. We don't teach them how to fight. Well, yes, but only how to fight with their words. They learn. They know that the reason we are in all this is so that they won't have to do the same. And they talk and they also listen. Contrary to what you say, we teach the children that words don't kill but that yes it is possible to kill words and, along with them, the act of being human.”

Subcomandante Marcos (1957) Mexican activist

"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet" http://www.csuchico.edu/zapatist/HTML/Archive/Communiques/etaJAN.html January, 2003

“The only progress I can see is progress in organization. The ordinary human being does not live long enough to draw any substantial benefit from his own experience. And no one, it seems, can benefit by the experiences of others. Being both a father and teacher, I know we can teach our children nothing. We can transmit to them neither our knowledge of life nor of mathematics. Each must learn its lesson anew.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1920s, Viereck interview (1929)

“We should teach our children to make friends with us, to communicate all their thoughts to us … by this we find many opportunities of teaching them important truths, almost without knowing.”

Henry Kirke White (1785–1806) English poet

Letter his White's aunt, 6 January 1800.
Letters

“A childish feeling, I admit, but, when we retire from the conventions of society and draw close to nature, we involuntarily become children: each attribute acquired by experience falls away from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was once and will surely be again.”

Mikhail Lermontov book A Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

“We prepare for success by acquiring virtues.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 20.

“Teach your children to work, teach your daughters modesty, teach all the virtue of economy. And if not make them saints, at least make them Christians.”

António de Oliveira Salazar (1889–1970) Prime Minister of Portugal

Quoted in Salazar: biographical study - page 285; of Franco Nogueira - Published by Atlantis Publishing, 1977

“Childish raptures! said Lucifer, with scorn, his eyes flashing like lightning. "Are we indeed whimpering and craven children, or slaves? Can we be content with toys and little deliciousnesses? Are we not mind, as well as emotion? And is not the mind, of both angel and man, the noblest of possessions, and worth exercising. It is in our minds that we approach the closest of Him, Who is all Mind. Mind is the creator of all philosophy, all order, all beauty, all satisfaction, but emotion is the lowliest of the virtues, if it is a virtue at all. Mind has in it the capacity to know all things, or, at least, the minds of angels.”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

Dialouges with the Devil (1967)
1960s

Related topics