Tryon Edwards

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.
– Tryon Edwards

The first step to improvement, whether mental, moral, or religious, is to know ourselves. Our
weakness, errors, deficiencies, and sins, that, by divine grace, we may overcome and turn
from them all.
– Tryon Edwards

Thoughts lead on to purposes. Purposes go forth in action. Actions form habits. Habits decide
character. And character fixes our destiny.
– Tryon Edwards

Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.
– Tryon Edwards

The secret of a good memory is attention; and attention to a subject depends upon our
interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds.
– Tryon Edwards

He who can suppress a moment’s anger may prevent a day of sorrow.
– Tryon Edwards

Age does not depend upon years, but upon temperament and health. Some men are born old,
and some never grow so.
– Tryon Edwards

Sin with the multitude, and your responsibility and your guilt are as great and as truly
personal, as if you alone had done the wrong.
– Tryon Edwards

If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others. One who ceases to learn cannot
adequately teach.
– Tryon Edwards

Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all
science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of
natural laws – a thing which can never be demonstrated.
– Tryon Edwards

High aims form high characters, and great objects bring out great minds.
– Tryon Edwards

The slanderer and the assassin differ only in the weapon they use; with the one it is the
dagger, with the other the tongue. The former is worse than the latter, for the last only kills
the body, while the other murders the reputation.
– Tryon Edwards

Never be so brief as to become obscure.
– Tryon Edwards

Prejudices are rarely overcome by argument; not being founded in reason they cannot be
destroyed by logic.
– Tryon Edwards

Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the
moment, but there is death in them at the end.
– Tryon Edwards

Hell is truth seen too late – duty neglected in its season.
– Tryon Edwards

The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the
use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.
– Tryon Edwards

People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher or better than
themselves.
– Tryon Edwards

Seek happiness for its own sake, and you will not find it. Seek for duty, and happiness will
follow as the shadow comes with the sunshine.
– Tryon Edwards

Where duty is plain, delay is both foolish and hazardous; where it is not, delay may be both
wisdom and safety.
– Tryon Edwards

Anecdotes are sometimes the best vehicles of truth, and if striking and appropriate, are often
more impressive and powerful than arguments.
– Tryon Edwards

To rule one’s anger is well. To prevent it is better.
– Tryon Edwards

To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully.
– Tryon Edwards

He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the
morrow than he is today.
– Tryon Edwards

Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and
abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy.
– Tryon Edwards

Superstitions are, for the most part, but the shadows of great truths.
– Tryon Edwards