John Lancaster Spalding Quotations

Few know the joys that spring from a disinterested curiosity. It is like a cheerful spirit that leads us through worlds filled with what is true and fair, which we admire and love because it is true and fair.

A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is

Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.

Dislike of another's opinions and beliefs neither justifies our own nor makes us more certain of them: and to transfer the repugnance to the person himself is a mark of a vulgar mind.

We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.

The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.

Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us. They create for us an atmosphere in which it becomes easier to succeed.

What we love to do we find time to do.

Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.

Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.

The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth.

Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.

If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.

It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves.

They who see through the eyes of others are controlled by the will of others.

The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.

There is some lack either of sense or of character in one who becomes involved in difficulties with the worthless or the vicious.

Faith, like love, unites; opinion, like hate, separates.

If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation.

As a brave man goes into fire or flood or pestilence to save a human life, so a generous mind follows after truth and love, and is not frightened from the pursuit by danger or toil or obloquy.

Inferior thinking and writing will make a name for a man among inferior people, who in all ages and countries, are the majority.

One may speak Latin and have but the mind of a peasant.

The fields and the flowers and the beautiful faces are not ours, as the stars and the hills and the sunlight are not ours, but they give us fresh and happy thoughts.

The world is a mirror into which we look, and see our own image.

If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.

In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.

What we enjoy, not what we possess, is ours, and in labouring for the possession of many things, we lose the power to enjoy the best.

Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.

Whom little things occupy and keep busy, are little men.

To think of education as a means of preserving institutions however excellent, is to have a superficial notion of its end and purpose, which is to mould and fashion men who are more than institutions, who create, outgrow, and re-create them.

The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth.

A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.

When guests enter the room their entertainers rise to receive them; and in all meetings men should ascend into their higher selves, imparting to one another only the best they know and love.

Culture makes the whole world our dwelling place; our palace in which we take our ease and find ourselves at one with all things.

What is greatly desired, but long deferred, gives little pleasure, when at length it is ours, for we have lived with it in imagination until we have grown weary of it, having ourselves, in the meanwhile, become other.

There are few things it is more important to learn than how to live on little and be therewith content: for the less we need what is without, the more leisure have we to live within.

It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.

The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.

States of soul rightly expressed, as the poet expresses them in moments of pure inspiration, retain forever the power of creating like states. It is this that makes genuine literature a vital force.

Insight makes argument ridiculous.

A hobby is the result of a distorted view of things. It is putting a planet in the place of a sun.

As children must have the hooping cough, the college youth must pass through the stage of conceit in which he holds in slight esteem the wisdom of the best.

Contradiction is the salt which keeps truth from corruption

To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us.

The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice.

Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom.

Be watchful lest thou lose the power of desiring and loving what appeals to the soul this is the miser's curse this the chain and ball the sensualist drags.

Agitators and declaimers may heat the blood, but they do not illumine the mind.

Leave each one his touch of folly; it helps to lighten life's burden which, if he could see himself as he is, might be too heavy to carry.

If all were gentle and contented as sheep, all would be as feeble and helpless.

Do definite good; first of all to yourself, then to definite persons.

A liberal education is that which aims to develop faculty without ulterior views of profession or other means of gaining a livelihood. It considers man an end in himself and not an instrument whereby something is to be wrought. Its ideal is human perfection.

Worry, whatever its source, weakens, takes away courage, and shortens life.

Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves.

If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be

Exercise of body and exercise of mind are supplementary, and both may be made recreative and educative.

We shrink from the contemplation of our dead bodies, forgetting that when dead they are no longer ours, and concern us as little as the hairs that have fallen from our heads.

To think profoundly, to seek and speak truth, to love justice and denounce wrong is to draw upon one's self the ill will of many.

Folly will run its course and it is the part of wisdom not to take it too seriously.

If our opinions rest upon solid ground, those who attack them do not make us angry, but themselves ridiculous.

To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.

Nothing requires so little mental effort as to narrate or follow a story. Hence everybody tells stories and the readers of stories outnumber all others.

We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours.

The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.

Say not thou lackest talent. What talent had any of the greatest, but passionate faith in the efficacy of work?

The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one's self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able.

A principal aim of education is to give students a taste for literature, for the books of life and power, and to accomplish this, it is necessary that their minds be held aloof from the babblement and discussions of the hour, that they may accustom themselves to take interest in the words and deeds of the greatest men, and so make themselves able and worthy to shape a larger and nobler future; but if their hours of leisure are spent over journals and reviews, they will, in later years, become the helpless victims of the newspaper habit.

If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything.

What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.

When one sense has been bribed the others readily bear false witness.

It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.

They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.

If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.

In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.

Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more.

The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.

It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.

Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.

When we have attained success, we see how inferior it is to the hope, yearning and enthusiasm with which we started forth in life's morning.

It is the business of the teacher ... to fortify reason and to make conscience sovereign.

The study of science, dissociated from that of philosophy and literature, narrows the mind and weakens the power to love and follow the noblest ideals: for the truths which science ignores and must ignore are precisely those which have the deepest bearing on life and conduct.

Be suspicious of your sincerity when you are the advocate of that upon which your livelihood depends.

They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.

Make thyself perfect; others, happy.

If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.

As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.

If thou need money, get it in an honest way by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.

The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.

Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.

The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.

There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.

The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls.

Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul.

If science were nothing more than the best means of teaching the love of the simple fact, the indispensable need of verification, of careful and accurate observation and statement, its value would be of the highest order.

Break not the will of the young, but guide it to right ends.

The noblest are they who turning from the things the vulgar crave, seek the source of a blessed life in worlds to which the senses do not lead.

If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.