# Example

An example is something that serves to illustrate or explain a rule; a model.

## Quotes

* Example has more followers than reason.
** Christian Nestell Bovee, Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume I, p. 178.
* We must give them hope, pride, a desire to fight. Yes, we need to make examples. But examples to follow. What we need.. are heroes.
** Jean-Jacques Annaud, Alain Godard, Enemy at the Gates (2001) (character of Danilov).
* What the world wants iz [sic] good examples, not so mutch advice; advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.
** Josh Billings, The Complete Works of Josh Billings (1842), under the heading "PUDDIN [sic] AND MILK."
* Illustrious Predecessor.
** Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1775 Edition).
* Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn?
** Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I, Section II. Memb. 3. Subsect. 2.
* None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.
** Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard's Almanack July 1736.
* Illustrious predecessors.
** Henry Fielding, Covent Garden Journal (Jan. 11, 1752).
* People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
** Oliver Goldsmith The Bee no. II (October 13, 1759), On Our Theatres.
* Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
** Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 170.
* Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
** Herodotus The Histories Book 1, Chapter 8.
* Example is always more efficacious than precept.
** Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759), Chapter 29.
* Indeed a wise and good man will turn examples of all sorts, to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.
** Thomas à Kempis The Imitation of Christ book 1 Ch. 25; translation by George Stanhope.
* The pulpit only "teaches" to be honest; the market-place "trains" to over-reaching and fraud; and "teaching" has not a tithe of the efficiency of "training". Christ never wrote a "Tract" in his life, but he went about doing good.
** Horace Mann Demands of the Age on Colleges.
* If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father's vices: thou canst not rebuke that in them, that they behold practised in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts: such as thy behaviour is before thy children's faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents' backs.
** Francis Quarles Enchiridon book 3 XVIII
* He was indeed the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
** William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act II, scene 3, line 21.
* I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men … in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.
** Martin Van Buren, Inaugural Address (March 4, 1837).
* Sequiturque patrem non passibus æquis.
** He follows his father with unequal steps.
** Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), II. 724.

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 242-43.
* Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
** Edmund Burke, Letter I, On a Regicide Peace, Volume V, p. 331.
* This noble ensample to his sheepe he gaf,— That firste he wroughte and afterward he taughte.
** Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Prologue, line 496.
* Quod exemplo fit, id etiam jure fieri putant.'
** Men think they may justly do that for which they have a precedent.
** Cicero, Epistles, IV. 3.
* Componitur orbis Regis ad exemplum; nec sic inflectere sensus Humanos edicta valent, quam vita regentis.
** The people are fashioned according to the example of their kings; and edicts are of less power than the life of the ruler.
** Claudianus, De Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augustii Panegyris, CCXCIX.
* Since truth and constancy are vain, Since neither love, nor sense of pain, Nor force of reason, can persuade, Then let example be obey'd.
** George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne, To Myra.
* Content to follow when we lead the way.
** Homer, The Iliad, Book X, line 141. Pope's translation.
* Avidos vicinum funus ut ægros Exanimat, mortisque metu sibi parcere cogit; Sic teneros animos aliena opprobria sæpe Absterrent vitiis.
** As a neighboring funeral terrifies sick misers, and fear obliges them to have some regard for themselves; so, the disgrace of others will often deter tender minds from vice.
** Horace, Satires, I. 4. 126.
* I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, but as an example to deter.
** Junius, Letter XII. To the Duke of Grafton.
* Unde tibi frontem libertatemque parentis, Cum facias pejora senex?
** Whence do you derive the power and privilege of a parent, when you, though an old man, do worse things (than your child)?
** Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), XIV. 56.
* L'exemple est un dangereux leurre; Où la guêpe a passé, le moucheron demeure.
** Example is a dangerous lure: where the wasp got through the gnat sticks fast.
** Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, II, XVI.
* Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life.
* He who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them to live.
** Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book I, Chapter XIX.
* What the world wants iz [sic] good examples, not so mutch advice; advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.
** Henry W. Shaw, The Complete Works of Josh Billings (1842), under the heading "PUDDIN [sic] AND MILK."
* Sheep follow sheep.
** Talmud, Ketuboth 62.
* Inspicere tamquam in speculum in vitas omnium Jubeo atque ex aliis sumere exemplum sibi.
** We should look at the lives of all as at a mirror, and take from others an example for ourselves.
** Terence, Adelphi, III. 3. 62.
* Felix quicumque dolore alterius disces posse cavere tuo.
** Happy thou that learnest from another's griefs, not to subject thyself to the same.
** Tibullus, Carmina, III. 6. 43.

### Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
* No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure, and good, without the world being the better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
** Phillips Brooks, p. 217.
* The best teachers of humanity are the lives of great men.
** Charles Henry Fowler, p. 217.
* What you learn from bad habits and in bad society, you will never forget, and it will be a lasting pang to you. I tell you in all sincerity, not as in the excitement of speech, but as I would confess and have confessed before God, I would give my right hand if I could forget that which I have learned in bad society.
** John Bartholomew Gough, p. 217.
* We can do more good by being good than in any other way.
** Rowland Hill, p. 217.
* You cannot undo your acts. If you have depraved another's will, and injured another's soul, it may be in the grace of God that hereafter you will be personally accepted, and the consequence of your guilt inwardly done away; but your penitence cannot undo the evil you have done. The forgiveness of God — the blood of Christ itself — does not undo the past.
** Frederick William Robertson, p. 217.
* Though Manasseh repented, his son Amon followed in the footsteps of his father in his wickedness, but not in his righteousness. Children will imitate their fathers in their vices, seldom in their repentance.
** Charles Spurgeon, p. 217.