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It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.
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“It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”

Henry Fielding

Source
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Date
1749
Meaning

Meaning of “It is much easier to make good men…”

Fielding distinguishes correcting the judgment of basically well-intentioned people from trying to reform people whose conduct is fundamentally committed to wrongdoing.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, concluding authorial reflection, Project Gutenberg #6593. Fielding explains one of the novel’s stated moral aims: prudence can protect virtue from traps that deceit and indiscretion create.

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Education Quotes About Teaching & Intellectual FormationGrowthGrowth MindsetLearning Quotes About Curiosity, Study & ExperienceLifeLife AdviceLife LessonsMindsetSelf ImprovementShortWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living WellCharacterEthicsVirtue
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The education of character is very much a question of models.
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“The education of character is very much a question of models.”

Samuel Smiles · Self-Help · 1859
Meaning & context

People absorb conduct from examples around them, so lived models can teach more powerfully than rules that are contradicted by behavior.

Source details

Self-Help, Chapter XII, “Example—Models,” Project Gutenberg #935. Smiles argues that character education depends heavily on models because people unconsciously mould themselves after the characters, manners, habits and opinions around them.

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It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.
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“It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.”

Henry Fielding · Joseph Andrews · 1742
Voice: Fictional narrator · Narrator
Meaning & context

Fielding’s narrator argues that visible examples of conduct can shape imitation more powerfully than abstract instruction alone.

Source details

Joseph Andrews, Book I, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #9611. Fielding opens his narrator’s discussion of exemplary lives by observing that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts, then develops the claim through imitation and the moral purpose he assigns to writing. It is eighteenth-century literary argument, not a modern experimental finding about learning.

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It is reflection which forms habits, and fixes principles indelibly on the heart.
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“It is reflection which forms habits, and fixes principles indelibly on the heart.”

Mary Wollstonecraft · Thoughts on the Education of Daughters · 1787
Meaning & context

Habit formation becomes stronger when action is joined with reflection, because principles understood and revisited are more likely to guide later choices.

Source details

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), “THE BENEFITS WHICH ARISE FROM DISAPPOINTMENTS,” printed page 111, Project Gutenberg #67466. Wollstonecraft says reflection forms habits and fixes principles while opening a religious-moral discussion of disappointment, self-examination and character.

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Knowledge is power.
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“Knowledge is power.”

Francis Bacon · Meditationes Sacrae · 1597
Meaning & context

The maxim connects understanding with the capacity to act effectively rather than treating knowledge as decoration.

Source details

From the Latin “ipsa scientia potestas est”; common English rendering.

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My trade and art is to live.
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“My trade and art is to live.”

Michel de Montaigne · Essays of Montaigne — Book II · 1580
Meaning & context

Montaigne makes lived experience itself the central field of inquiry, treating ordinary life as material for reflection rather than a distraction from philosophy.

Source details

Essays of Montaigne, Book II, Chapter VI, “Use Makes Perfect,” Charles Cotton translation, W. C. Hazlitt 1877 edition, Project Gutenberg #3600. “My trade and art is to live” occurs while Montaigne defends speaking from his own sense, experience and practice. It remains early-modern autobiographical essay and moral reflection rather than modern therapeutic or behavioral-science evidence.

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The worth of work with the hands
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“The worth of work with the hands”

Booker T. Washington · Working With the Hands · 1904
Meaning & context

Washington opens the book by treating manual work as capable of contributing to education, dignity and practical development rather than merely supplying labor.

Source details

Working With the Hands, Chapter I, opening sentence; Project Gutenberg #64504. This deliberately short excerpt is presented with its educational context.